May 14, 2007

Indonesia's CP Prima's bid to acquire Dipasena to see rival bids

Indonesia's PT Central Proteinprima (CP Prima), the world's largest shrimp producer, is tensing up for a fight to gain control of PT Dipasena, one of Southeast Asia's largest aquaculture firm.

The bid to acquire Indonesia's PT Dipasena, which once ranked among the top shrimp producers in the world, could see a three way race between CP Prima, which is partly owned by Thai agribusiness giant Charoen Pokphand, the Laranda Consortium and Kemila International Holding.

Laranda is an international shrimp producer with operations in the Philippines and the Middle East while Kemila is purportedly backed by the Fund Asia Group.

CP Prima officially announced its bid for Dipasena late last month.

Dipasena has 186,000 hectares of shrimp ponds run collaboratively with some 11,000 local farmers. The company was taken over by the government during the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98.

In 2005, Asset Management a state-sanctioned agency to dispose of such assets, gave control of Dipasena to PT Recapital Advisers in return for a promise to inject fresh capital and settle the company's loans to local farmers by March 1 of this year.

Recapital failed to meet the deadline and had to relinquish control back to Asset Management. 

Asset Management would now put Dipasena on offer again on May 25.

Bidders are required to have experience in the aquaculture business and be willing to invest a minimum of 1.7 trillion rupiah (US$200million) to develop Dipasena's shrimp farms.

Substantial improvements could be made to the production structure of Dipasena if the bid is successful, the CP Prima's director Mahar Sembiring promised.