Unggul Indah to issue Rp 600b bonds
Unggul Indah to issue Rp 600b bonds
JAKARTA: Indonesia's petrochemical company PT Unggul Indah Corp. will issue Rp 600 billion (US$70.9 million) in five-year bonds in October mainly to repay a debt and to help expand production, it said Monday.
The bond, its first-ever issue, will be split into a fixed- coupon and a floating-rate tranche. The company has yet to decide the rates.
Unggul Indah said 70 percent of the proceeds will be used to help pay back a $73.6 million syndicated loan, which was arranged by JP Morgan Chase Bank. It didn't provide further details on the loan. It will also use some of its own cash to repay the loan.
It has named PT Trimegah Securities and PT Danatama Makmur as joint lead underwriters for the bond, which will be sold at the full price.
The company booked a net profit of $9.01 million in 2002, up from $8.86 million in 2001.
Unggul Indah is one of a slew of local companies tapping the domestic debt market this year due to cheap borrowing costs amid falling interest rates. But demand for bonds is still healthy because of the better returns offered than bank rates. -- Dow Jones
Indosat plans Rp 1.75t bond
JAKARTA: Indonesia's second-largest telecommunications company PT Indonesian Satellite Corp. On Monday said it's planning to sell Rp 1.75 trillion (US$207 million) worth of bonds to local investors later this year to refinance the debt of cellular unit PT Satellite Palapa Indonesia, or Satelindo.
The amount is less than the Rp 3 trillion Indosat mentioned previously. The company's brief statement didn't explain the smaller offering; company officials couldn't be immediately reached for comment.
The new bonds will carry maturities of five and seven years. PT Andalan Artha Advisindo, PT ING Securities Indonesia will jointly lead underwrite the issue. The timing and coupon rates haven't yet been finalized, Indosat said.
It said the local bond issue would allow the company to extend its loan tenors, take advantage of the low interest rate environment, and reduce risks stemming from exposure to foreign currency and interest rate fluctuations.
Besides the rupiah bond issue, Indosat officials have said the company also plans to offer up to $300 million in international bonds later this year to refinance some of the $900 million debt coming due.
The company's debt load increased in 2002 when it bought Satelindo, the nation's second-largest cellphone company. Much of Satelindo's $360 million debt is in short-term borrowings, including bonds and bank loans. -- Dow Jones
Bosch to invest $675m in China
BEIJING: German power tools and car parts maker Robert Bosch will invest 600 million euro (US$675 million) to build a plant for manufacturing automobile parts in eastern China, a report said on Monday.
China Business said the plant in Wuxi, Jiangsu province, is expected to have annual sales of one billion euro and become Bosch's global production base for fuel injection pumps.
The pumps made at the plant will meet European Euro III standards, it said.
Bosch has already set up more than 180 repair outlets for petroleum engines and 80 outlets for diesel engines in China, and plans to raise the total number to 400 by the end of this year and to 1,000 by 2010, the newspaper said. -- AFP
HK air passenger traffic reaches 90%
HONG KONG: Passenger traffic at the Hong Kong International Airport continued to improve in August, reaching more than 90 percent of the level before the outbreak of SARS, the Airport Authority of Hong Kong said on Monday.
The authority said in a statement that traffic had been boosted by Hong Kong residents, who traveled on summer holidays, including those who took advantage of special promotion packages offered by the airlines.
It said visitors from most of Hong Kong's main markets have returned to the levels of before the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).
A total of 3.02 million passengers passed through Hong Kong International Airport in August, down 5.30 percent from 3.19 million a year earlier, but up 22.30 percent from 2.47 million in July.
Cargo throughput for the month stood at 219,000 tons, up 5.50 percent year-on-year from 207,631 tons in July last year, mainly driven by growth in exports to the major markets of Europe, Taiwan and mainland China.
The pneumonia-like SARS claimed 297 lives in Hong Kong out of nearly 1,800 infections, with the city second only to China in the severity of the outbreak. -- AFP