Petition filed against PSN, Aces

Petition filed against PSN, Aces

State-owned investment and securities firm PT Danareksa plans to
file a bankruptcy petition against telecommunication firms PT
Pasifik Satelit Nusantara (PSN) and PT Asia Cellular Satelit
(Aces) over their unpaid loans to the company.

Danareksa president director Lin Che Wei said late on Monday
the company had decided to do so because they had shown no
interest in cooperating to settle their massive debts, which they
obtained in 1998.

"We are now in the process of consulting our lawyers. We
expect the bankruptcy petition process to be completed soon. The
two companies are our biggest problem in settling our unpaid
loans," said Lin.

PSN has a debt to Danareksa amounting in total of Rp 135
billion (about US$13.56 million), while Aces has some Rp 375
billion.

After taking the helm at Danareksa in July, Lin immediately
decided to provide Rp 248.9 billion in the first semester of this
year as a provision to cover the company's bad debts amounting to
Rp 900 billion.

According to Lin, the bad debts were allegedly the result of
various irregularities made by the previous managements. The
company had already launched an investigative audit to try to
uncover the problems. -- JP