Saturday, November 11, 2000
THAILAND
CP Foods set to sell $1.7b of bonds
BLOOMBERG in Bangkok
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Charoen Pokphand Foods, Southeast Asia's largest producer of animal feed, said it would sell up to 10 billion baht (about HK$1.78 billion) worth of bonds to help buy three companies now owned by its controlling shareholder.
The bond sale comes eight months after CP Foods sold seven billion baht of five-year bonds to help repay foreign debt. It gave no other details of the debt plan in a statement to the stock exchange.
The company said about 2.3 billion baht of the proceeds could be used for the purchase of three companies from its main shareholder, the Charoen Pokphand Group. The group is the private investment unit of the Chearavanont family, whose patriarch Dhanin Chearavanont is the only Thai in Forbes' international list of billionaires.
"CP Foods recently bought the group's loss-making unit in the United States, so we cannot be sure that they are making good investments [for minority shareholders] in buying milk and grilled chicken units for two-plus billion baht," said Kitti Nathisuwan, an analyst at ABN Amro Asia Securities.
The plan calls for CP Foods to pay 1.37 billion baht to CP Group for CP Interfood (Thailand), a food processor. CP Group owns 46 per cent of publicly traded CP Foods.
Another 275 million baht would be used to buy Star Marketing, a chicken processor and retailer, from CP Group. Also, about 660 million baht would be used to purchase CP Group's 60 per cent stake in dairy company CP-Meiji, in which Meiji Milk Products of Japan is a partner. |
