Plaza Indonesia buys 55% stake of Duta Nusa

JAKARTA (JP): Publicly-listed property company PT Plaza Indonesia Realty yesterday obtained approval from its shareholders to purchase a 55 percent stake of PT Duta Nusa Bina Lestari at Rp 139 billion (US$59 million).

Duta Nusa, which is partially owned by Bimantara, is the owner of a plot of land previously owned by the Russian Embassy, which was located next to Plaza Indonesia's properties Grand Hyatt Hotel and Plaza Indonesia shopping center on Jl. Thamrin, Central Jakarta.

"The 55 percent stake represents 36,667 Duta Nusa shares, to be priced at Rp 3.7 million each," Plaza Indonesia's president, Boyke Gozali, told announced yesterday.

"Being the majority shareholder of Duta Nusa is key to the continuation of Plaza Indonesia's performance because it will enable us to concentrate our new projects in the future in one location," Boyke noted.

He said the transaction is fair because the two hectare land previously owned by the embassy is now valued at $6,000 per square meter.

Boyke contradicted the assumption that the transaction was only possible because Bimantara controls both Plaza Indonesia and Duta Nusa.

"The share purchase is a pure transaction. That's why we obtained approval from both the shareholders and the capital market regulator," he said.

"Moreover, Bimantara owns only 16 percent of Duta Nusa's total shares, meaning that it is not only Bimantara's shares that we will buy," he added.

Plaza Indonesia's general manager for project development, Willy Sidharta, said that the company presently owns 42,540 square meters of land, including the former site of the Australian Embassy, which was acquired by the company three years ago.

The company, however, utilized only 38,050 square meters to build the Grand Hyatt Hotel and Plaza Indonesia shopping center.

Willy said the acquisition of the former Russian Embassy site will expand the company's total land to 48,891 square meters.

"We will construct a 35,000-square-meter shopping mall, 46,000 square meters of apartments, 61,000 square meters of offices and 55,000 square meters of basements on the site," said Willy Sidharta, the company's general manager for project development.

Sidharta said that the expansion project will need a total investment of $225 million, excluding Rp 139 billion for the land acquisition.

"We have a construction license from the Jakarta municipal administration and we expect to start building in October. Therefore, we have only five months to appoint the main contractor," Sidharta added.

Profits

Boyke declared that last year, the company booked Rp 41.2 billion in net profits, compared to Rp 31.7 billion gained in 1994.

"Our total revenues rose from Rp 140 billion in 1994 to Rp 158.7 billion last year. The hotel division contributed Rp 120 billion to last year's revenues and the shopping center Rp 38 billion," he said.

He said that the shareholders also approved the management's proposal to pay dividends of Rp 35 per share, totaling Rp 12 billion or 29 percent of the net profits.

"We expect to book Rp 165 billion in revenues and around Rp 45 billion in net profits this year," Boyke said. (08)