Satelindo approves third stake-acquirer
Satelindo approves third stake-acquirer
JAKARTA (JP): A subsidiary of Germany's Deutsche Telekom, which agreed last week to buy a 25-percent stake of PT Satelit Palapa Indonesia (Satelindo), may sell a part of its newly- acquired stake to a third party, according to a Satelindo commissioner.
"Documents signed by both commissioners and executives of Satelindo and Deutsche Telekom in Jakarta last month included an agreement allowing Deutsche Telekom to invite a third party to buy part of the Satelindo stake that it would buy," a Satelindo commissioner, Setyanto P. Santosa, said yesterday.
The agreement on the stake acquisition was signed at a ceremony in Germany last week in the presence of President Soeharto.
Setyanto, who is also president of the state-owned domestic telecommunications company PT Telkom, said that Satelindo and Deutsche Telekom had discussed the matter during negotiations.
After the acquisition, Satelindo is 45 percent owned by PT Bima Graha Telekomindo, a subsidiary of the widely diversified Bimantara group, 22.5 percent by Telkom, 7.5 percent by the state-owned international telecommunications operator PT Indosat and 25 percent by Deutsche Telekom's subsidiary, DeTeMobil.
Satelindo runs digital telecommunications, the Palapa-C satellites and international calls.
Deutsche Telekom, with a US$586 million bid, won the 25- percent stake over its rivals Cable & Wireless of Britain, AT&T and Nynex of the United States and France Telecom in a tough tender process. In a surprise move, Satelindo rejected Cable & Wireless at the last moment in favor of Deutsche Telekom in late February.
Financial Times, a Hong Kong-based economics daily, reported recently that Cable & Wireless may still be able to gain a stake in Satelindo, as DeTeMobil planned to sell half of its 25 percent stake in Satelindo to the British firm.
Telkomsel
Setyanto also said yesterday that a team comprised of Indosat and Telkom executives was currently studying a proposal from a domestic firm intending to buy shares in the digital telecommunications operator PT Telkomsel.
Telkomsel is 51 percent owned by Telkom and 49 percent owned by Indosat. The Ministry of Finance approved the establishment of the company, whose legal and management affairs are still being processed, last September.
Several private firms, including PT Telekomindo of the Rajawali Group, have shown interest in acquiring a majority stake in Telkomsel.
Meanwhile, a prominent legal expert, M. Dimyati Hartono, told The Jakarta Post yesterday that it was the task of the Ministry of Finance to decide whether or not a private firm is allowed to own a stake in a state-owned company.
He said that policies and regulations on telecommunications needed strengthening because the global telecommunications industry had grown very rapidly.(icn)