Sierad Group to submit merger plan to Bapepam

JAKARTA (JP): Sierad Group would submit a merger plan for its publicly listed subsidiaries PT Anwar Sierad and PT Sierad Produce to the Capital Market Supervisory Agency (Bapepam) next month as part of the group's debt restructuring deal.

"If Bapepam has no questions or comments within 20 days after receiving our proposal, we can go ahead with the merger," Anwar Sierad's corporate secretary F.X. Awi Tantra told The Jakarta Post after the company's public presentation.

He said Sierad was currently completing the required financial and legal opinions before submitting the merger plan to Bapepam.

Sierad, he added, also needed these opinions to outline the merger sequence of Anwar and Produce.

"Those opinions on the merger are nearly complete," he said.

Awi said that Bapepam would only review the opinions in accordance with the market regulation and could neither reject nor approve the merger.

"Once we've passed Bapepam, we will hold an extraordinary shareholders meeting to ask for their approval," he said.

Awi expected the meeting to be held in October and said Sierad Produce would become the surviving entity of the merger.

Anwar had just survived a bankruptcy petition filed at the Jakarta Commercial Court when its creditors voted in June to accept the company's debt restructuring proposal.

Sierad Group owes some US$316 million to some 48 local and foreign creditors, he said.

Under the debt restructuring agreement, the Group is to swap $210 million in debt for equity in the newly merged company.

Awi said that payment of the remaining $106 million had been rescheduled, of which the Group would pay $90 million in bonds.

Anwar Sierad is 50.1 percent owned by PT Sietek Nusantara and the public owns the rest. The company operates chicken hatcheries, produces chicken feed and trades poultry farm equipment.

The company reported that sales in 1999 rose by 47 percent to Rp 847 billion (US$102 million) from Rp 576 billion in 1998. As of June 2000, Anwar reported unaudited sales of Rp 476 billion.

The company's two subsidiaries, PT Sierad Grain and PT Sierad Feedmill would also merge with Produce.

Sierad Produce is a chicken slaughterhouse and a meat processing company that, based on data in 1999, is 54.72 percent owned by Anwar and the rest by the public.(bkm)