Indomobil to focus on car retailer
Indomobil to focus on car retailer
JAKARTA (JP): Publicly listed car manufacturer and importer of
various car brands PT Indomobil Sukses Internasional said on
Thursday that it would leave the car importing business and would
instead focus on becoming a car retailer.
Indomobil president Soebronto Laras said the company planned
to persuade the automobile manufacturers to take over the import
operations of the various car brands the company was currently
selling, except for Suzuki, which Indomobil assembled in
Indonesia.
He said the move would allow Indomobil to transfer its foreign
exchange risks as an importer for the company's various car
brands.
Speaking at Indomobil's public expose, Soebronto said that the
company would buy the imported cars at local prices.
"We're now sorting out the types of car brands we would like
to focus on," he said without saying when Indomobil would switch
its business focus.
Indomobil is the authorized dealer of various car brands
comprising Suzuki, Nissan, Mazda, Hino, Volvo, Audi, Volkswagen,
and Ssongyang.
Soebronto did not say how the policy would effect current
owners of Indomobil's cars, and whether the prices of these cars
would change.
According to him, car manufacturers like Volvo and Mazda were
interested in directly importing their cars to Indonesia using
Indomobil as their distributor.
"We have 1,300 outlets across Indonesia, and we can earn a
good profit margin like that for any retailer which doesn't face
foreign exchange risks," he explained.
As for Suzuki, he said, the company would strengthen its
production facilities as part of plans to cope with a free
market.
"In fact we hope we can become an export base for Suzuki," he
said.
Soebronto said that Indomobil planned to cooperate with other
Suzuki producers in the region to jointly market their cars.
Indomobil is also expecting to complete its debt restructuring
negotiations within the first semester of this year.
The company's finance director Erick Kartawijaya said
Indomobil would offer foreign and domestic creditors a debt
restructuring plan using a combination of debt to equity swap and
rescheduling.
The company owes Rp 337.4 billion (US$35.51 million) to PT
Holdiko Perkasa.
Holdiko is a company established by the Indonesian Bank
Restructuring Agency to manage companies surrendered by the Salim
Group to the agency as payment of its massive debts to the
government. The companies polled at Holdiko include Bank Central
Asia (BCA).
Erick said that Indomobil owes an additional Rp 263 billion to
IBRA as a result of loans taken over from other local banks. The
company has also $90 million in debts to Marubeni, $2.3 million
to Societe Generale, and $22 million and 1.85 billion yen to IMG
Sejahtera Langgeng.
According to Erick, most of the debts belong to Indomobil's 69
subsidiaries.
Indomobil is 72.6 percent owned by Holdiko, 20.5 percent by PT
Tritunggal Intipermata and the rest is owned by public
investors.(bkm)