Kanindotex still open to other bidders: Mar'ie
Kanindotex still open to other bidders: Mar'ie
JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Finance Mar'ie Muhammad said yesterday that the debt ridden Kanindotex is still open to other bidders despite the entry of a major consortium to take over a major stake of the textile company.
"If there are other investors wishing to take over the company, go ahead," the minister told reporters amid an allegation that the minister of finance had approved the politically well-connected consortium led by Bambang Trihatmojo, President Soeharto's son, to acquire a majority stake in Kanindotex.
The minister rejected the allegation, saying that accepting the offer of the consortium to acquire Kandindotex is the sole right of creditors, which consists of two major state banks -- Bank Bumi Daya (BBD) and Bank Pembangunan Indonesia (Bapindo).
The consortium, which also includes Bambang Yoga Sugama, the son of the former chief of the national intelligent agency and Johannes Kotjo, a former executive of the Salim Group, recently proposed to buy a 90 percent stake in Kanindotex. The other 10 percent would be sold to the Federation of Indonesian Batik Cooperatives (GKBI), an independent institution appointed by the creditors to temporarily manage the Semarang-based textile producer.
The company, which operates at least three textile factories, has an estimated bad debt of around Rp 763 billion (US$354.88 million) with BBD and Bapindo.
The consortium's takeover plan was, however, opposed by the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) and the economic board of the ruling Golongan Karya (Golkar) faction.
Kadin and Golkar's economic board recently appealed to the government to appoint GKBI, the present caretaker of the textile company, as the majority shareholder of the textile company, which is theoretically still owned by Robby Tjahyadi.
After submitting the draft law on the implementation of the 1994-1995 state budget yesterday, the minister of finance said that the final decision on who will take over the textile company is in the hands of the creditors.
The minister, however, said that any investors bidding for the acquisition of the textile company should use fresh funds and that a significant portion of the textile company should be sold to GKBI.
Late last year, Bambang Trihatmojo, the chairman of the Bimantara group, and Johannes Kotjo acquired the majority stake in Mayatexdian, the publicly listed affiliate of Kanindotex.
Business analysts described the move of Bambang's consortium to take over Kanindotex merely as a trick by Robby Tjahyadi to regain control in Kanindotex, which is in actuality now owned by BBD and Bapindo.
Rizal Ramli, the managing director of the Econit business consulting firm, predicted that Kanindotex would be incorporated into the listed Mayatexdian if the consortium takes over the company.
"Merging Kanindotex into the publicly listed Mayatexdian is another form of backdoor listing," Ramli said, adding that the backdoor listing would enable the consortium to raise fresh funds through the issuance of new shares to settle the company's bad debts with the two banks.
Ramli cautioned that the sale of Kanindotex shares to the public through the so named backdoor listing would be unfair because the real value of the textile firm's assets would have been manipulated.
The analyst charged that the assets of the textile company had been greatly marked up by Robby Tjahyadi to enable him to get large loans from the two creditors.(hen)