No woes on Astra investment

No woes on Astra investment

SINGAPORE (Dow Jones): More than 18 months after it bought a 23.1 percent stake in Indonesian car maker PT Astra International, Singapore-listed Cycle & Carriage Ltd. says it has no regrets about its decision to enter Indonesia, the Business Times reports.

Kour Nam Tiang, general manager of Cycle & Carriage and a director at Astra, told the newspaper in an interview that the decision to invest in Indonesia despite the uncertain political climate has proven to be "100 percent correct".

"It has given us more than a third leg, because our investment in Astra now overwhelms all our other businesses," Kour said. Cycle & Carriage "may now be considered to be an Indonesian risk stock, but we couldn't have asked for a better investment."

In March last year, a Cycle & Carriage-led consortium - which included Jakarta-based private equity firm Batavia Investment Management, the Government of Singapore Investment Corp. and investment firm Lazard Freres of France - successfully bid for a 38.4 percent stake in Astra from the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency, paying US$506 million, the report said.