Medco sells $250m of bonds

Medco sells $250m of bonds

JAKARTA: PT Medco Energi Internasional, Indonesia's biggest publicly traded oil company, sold US$250 million of seven-year bonds globally, one-quarter more than the amount first planned, to fund expansion.

The 8.75 percent bonds were priced to yield 9 percent, or 6.46 percentage points more than U.S. government bonds maturing in five years, said Mark Leahy, head of debt syndication in Asia at UBS Warburg, which arranged the sale with Credit Suisse First Boston. The company said earlier it planned to raise $200 million.

The bonds are rated B+ by Standard & Poor's, four levels below investment grade. The rating company cited Medco's dwindling oil reserves and expected rising costs. Moody's Investors Service rates the bonds B3, six levels below investment grade.

Medco sold its first global bonds 14 months ago. The five- year debt was the first issued overseas by a non-state Indonesian company since the financial crisis in 1998. The sale, managed by CSFB, succeeded after the amount was cut by a third to $100 million and the yield was raised. -- Bloomberg

Telkom buys stake in Multimedia Nusantara

JAKARTA: PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Telkom), the country's biggest phone company, said it paid Rp 7 billion (US$828,647) in cash and an additional amount in shares for the 69 percent of PT Multimedia Nusantara it didn't already own.

Indonesia's main domestic call operator bought the stake from PT Indocitra Grahabawana, which will get Telkom's 21.34 percent stake in PT Menara Jakarta as part of the share portion of the agreement, Telkom said in a statement.

Telkom, which owns 65 percent of the country's No.1 cellular operator, PT Telekomunikasi Selular, is seeking to offer new services and win more customers after it lost its monopoly on domestic call services on Aug. 1.

It's now looking for new sources of revenue as it competes with rival PT Indonesian Satellite Corp., the country's main overseas call operator. -- Bloomberg

Matahari expects lower sales in '03

JAKARTA: PT Matahari Putra Prima, Indonesia's biggest retailer, said it expects sales growth of less than 10 percent this year because of increased competition for clothes and other household goods it sells.

"We project a single digit growth in net sales," Danny Kojongian, an investor relations official at the company, said after a shareholders' meeting. "Growth is capped by stiff competition in the industry."

Last year, the company earned Rp 105.3 billion (US$12.5 million), compared with Rp 101.3 billion in 2001. Sales fell 4.1 percent to Rp 5.2 trillion rupiah from Rp 5.4 trillion, the first-ever decline.

Matahari's shareholders earlier approved paying a 2002 dividend equivalent to 31 percent of profit. It will pay a dividend of Rp 12 a share, the company said after a shareholder meeting on Wednesday. It paid Rp 11 a share in dividends from 2001 profit. -- Bloomberg

Money

Thailand to ban retail giants

BANGKOK: New regulations in Thailand will force large retail stores to be located at least 15 kilometers (9 miles) from the commercial centers of provincial towns, local media reported here on Friday.

Under the new rules, expected to take effect next month, stores with at least 1,000 square metres (yards) of retail space must also adhere to a range of other minor rules, including reserving 30 percent of their sites for green areas, the Bangkok Post reported.

The regulations form part of an amended national town planning policy to be fully completed in four years, director-general of the Town and Country Planning Department Rajatin Syamananda told the English-language daily.

The report said that Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra had in February scrapped a proposed new law aimed at curbing the spread of foreign-owned superstores, widely blamed for putting small shopowners out of business. -AFP

Chinese retail sales rise

BEIJING: Retail sales in China grew 7.7 percent in April despite a drastic fall in the catering industry which saw its double-digit growth in March slump to 2.1 percent last month, the National Bureau of Statistics reported on Thursday.

Overall retail sales figures for April reached 340.7 billion yuan (US$41.2 billion), slightly down from a 9.2 percent growth for the first quarter, the bureau said.

"Restaurants were hard hit in April..., with growth 12 percentage points less than in the same month last year and 13 percentage points less than March," it said.

Although the bureau provided no explanation for the slump, the restaurant business in China has been hit hard by the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrom (SARS), with customers shunning food outlets for fear of contracting the virus.

In its notice, the bureau said retail sales in urban areas rose 8.1 percent to 220.21 billion yuan in April, compared with growth of 10.4 percent in the first quarter. -- AFP