Govt to revalue Dipasena assets
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The government will appoint an independent appraiser to revalue troubled assets of PT Dipasena Citra Darmaja, Southeast Asia's largest shrimp-farming company, before offering them to investors for sale or in a bid to seek working capital.
The reappraisal aims to clarify the firm's current asset value, which many believed to have significantly dropped not long after tycoon Sjamsul Nursalim handed over the assets as part of the payments of his massive debts to the government in 2002.
"The move is part of our efforts to effectively recover Sjamsul's debts," said Raden Pardede, deputy president director of asset management firm PT Perusahaan Pengelola Aset (PPA) told The Jakarta Post over the weekend.
PPA is a company under the auspices of the Ministry of Finance with a task to manage unsold assets previously handled by the now-defunct Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA).
Sjamsul, chairman of the Gajah Tunggal Group, transferred the Dipasena asset to the government to partly settle his Rp 28 trillion (US$3.1 billion) debts.
The debts were a result of the channeling of a Bank Indonesia Liquidity Assistance (BLBI) fund to support Sjamsul's Bank Dagang Nasional Indonesia (BDNI) cope with massive runs during the monetary crisis in late 1997.
In 1998, the IBRA claimed Dipasena was worth about Rp 20 trillion. However, an audit conducted by IBRA in 2002 showed the companies assets were only worth a 10th of that value or about Rp 2 trillion.
Raden said the confusion about the value of the company's assets had discouraged potential investors from taking over the firm.
"This is a protracted problem; Sjamsul's legacy to the state. Reports about the inflation of Dipasena assets have greatly reduced investors' interest in the company," said Raden.
Once the reappraisal of the firm was completed, the PPA would appoint an independent financial advisor to come up with ways to restructure the company.
In a recent meeting with the House of Representatives' Commission IX on financial affairs, PPA said one option for the firm would be to remain under PPA control while the agency helped restructure its operations and invited in new investors to inject working capital.
This option would potentially give more long-term returns to the government, compared to the sale of the assets at cheaper prices.
At present, Dipasena, which has a concession of about 180,000 hectares in Lampung, can only utilize 30 percent of its production capacity due to the lack of working capital.
The Attorney General's Office recently halted its corruption investigation into Sjamsul, saying the businessman had repaid all of the outstanding BLBI funds.
Sjamsul was declared a suspect in a BLBI case in 2000 after has bank failed to repay the BLBI. In addition, the bank was accused of violating the country's legal lending limits by channeling most of its loans into subsidiary companies.
Sjamsul avoided an investigation or prosecution by claiming he needed to seek medical treatment abroad. He has been a resident in Singapore, which does not have an extradition treaty with Indonesia, since 2001.