Mari'e warns on loans in Kanindotex takeover
Mari'e warns on loans in Kanindotex takeover
JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Finance Mar'ie Muhammad has warned
the potential buyer of the debt-ridden Kanindotex not to use
loans from state-owned banks to finance the takeover of the
textile company.
"The financing for the takeover of Kanindotex should not come
from state-owned banks," the minister told reporters on Tuesday.
The minister, however, promised that the government would not
interfere with the takeover details despite his warning against
the use of loans from state-owned banks.
The most important concern for the government is that the new
investor repays all of Kanindotex's debts to state-owned Bank
Bumi Daya (BBD) and Bank Pembangunan Indonesia (Bapindo).
A business consortium led by Bambang Trihatmodjo, the chairman
of the Bimantara Group, is reportedly negotiating the take over
plan with BBD and Bapindo, the two main creditors of the textile
company.
The consortium, which also includes Bambang Yoga Sugama, the
chairman of the Indonesian Textile Association, and Johannes
Kotjo, a former executive of the Salim Group, plans to buy around
90 percent of Kanindotex's shares. The other 10 percent would be
sold to the Federation of Indonesian Batik Cooperatives (GKBI),
an independent institution appointed by the government to
temporarily run Kanindotex's management, and to several other
investors.
The government last September appointed GKBI to take over the
management from Robby Tjahjadi, the owner and the president of
Kanindotex, which was reported to have incurred bad debts of
around Rp 500 billion. The loans are estimated to have grown to
over Rp 936 billion at present.
However, Benny Sutrisno, a spokesman for the consortium, said
that Kanindotex's total loans amount to only Rp 763 billion,
comprising of Rp 420 billion in the form of investment credits,
Rp 283 billion in the form of working credits and another Rp 60
billion in the form of interest.
"The first priority of the consortium is to repay the loans,"
said Benny, who is also the president of Mayatexdian, a publicly
listed textile company controlled by Bambang Trihatmodjo and
Johannes Kotjo.
Bambang and Kotjo took over a majority of Mayatexdian's shares
from Robby, who became notorious in 1970s for his involvement in
car smuggling activities.
Maneuver
Business analysts described the plan of the Kanindotex
takeover as a maneuver by Robby to regain the control of the
textile company.
Rizal Ramli, the managing director of the Econit business
consulting company, said Kotjo and his partners in the consortium
acted only as Robby's proxies in his effort to regain control of
Kanindotex, which operates several textile factories in Central
Java.
Ramli predicted that the consortium would sell Kanindotex to
Mayatexdian after taking it over from the two banks, the "de
facto" owners of the company.
"Selling Kanindotex to the publicly listed Mayatexdian is
another form of a backdoor listing," Ramli said, adding that such
a backdoor listing would enable the consortium to raise fresh
funds through rights issue to finance the repayment of its loans
at the two banks.
Ramli called on the Capital Market Supervisory Agency to be
alert about the possible backdoor listing of Kanindotex, which he
called another form of dirty trick Robby might try in "cheating
the public."
Ramli said that Robby had marked up prices of his textile
factories in order to obtain a high amount of loans from BBD and
Bapindo.
He estimated that the total assets of Kanindotex is less than
a half of its loans, which reached over Rp 936 billion because
half of the sum had been used by Robby to acquire several
properties in Jakarta and Bandung.(hen)