Holcim Indonesia looks for Strategic Investors

Holcim Indonesia looks for Strategic Investors
11 October 2006


PT Holcim Indonesia Tbk is looking for strategic investors to buy its stake at PT Wahana Transtama as the plan to sell the stake to the workers has met the deadlock.


The company has planned to sell the units on distribution and cement raw material supplier as the unit has kept suffering from losses.


The President Director or Holcim Tim Mackay said the company has talked with the company’s trade union about the option to buy the unit by signing three years service level agreement.


"We offered the units and the assets to the workers and planned to assist them to rebuild the unit. But most workers have rejected the alternative," he wrote on a press release yesterday.


The company plans to do that to cut the operating cost. So far, the net profit of Wahana Tamtama has been decreasing while the operating cost has been increasing.


"We are sure that the plan to sell the unit is the best solution. It is impossible for us to retain Wahana Transtama as the unit has always been financially dependence to Holcim as the cost has been increasing faster than the revenue," Mackay said.


On October 5, the company has offered the severance payment for the workers of the unit. As it was not considered as material transaction, the company did not ask the approval from the shareholders.


The Communication Manager of Holcim Monika Irawati Irsan added that the company is looking for strategic investor due to the failure of the first option.


After selling the unit, the company will still cooperate with Wahana Transtama.


"It is impossible to sell the unit to the workers. We are now looking for investors caring to the business of Wahana Transtama," she said.


Losses

During the first half of the year, Holcim posted the operating loss of IDR35 billion compared with IDR21 billion during the same period of last year.


Therefore, Credit Suisse has cut the estimation on Holcim’s net profit by 67 per cent this year, and it has predicted that the net profit will increase by 27 per cent in 2007.


The increasing costs were on distribution and energy, advertising, promotion of new brand, and salary increase.


An analyst of Credit Suisse Arief Wana predicted that the company will suffer from IDR73.9bon losses. The losses will increase to IDR186.8bn in 2007 and IDR140bn in 2008.


On yesterday’s trading, the share price of SMCB was traded at IDR580 per unit, unchanged from that of last weekend. (Bisnis/ags)


Published under Cement News