Chairul Tanjung buys detik.com

JAKARTA: Indonesian tycoon Chairul Tanjung has reached the final agreement to acquire PT Agranet Multicitra Siberkom, the management of online news media, detik.com.The deal was recently marked and top executives of the news portal have informed on the corporate action, but there has been no detail on the transaction value, said a person familiar to the matter yesterday.The management of detik.com gathered its employees and explained the acquisition of the online media on Tuesday evening, according to information compiled by Bisnis.At the meeting, the management confirmed that Chairul Tanjung had acquired shares of detik.com belonging to some shareholders.Chairul Tanjung was not available to make confirmation while Bisnis tried to reach him on his cell phone.Since two years ago, Chairul has reportedly been targeting the shares of one pioneer of Indonesian news portal. However, there has been no confirmation on the transaction scheme.The information started spreading as two minor shareholders in detik.com, namely Tiger Investment and Mitsui&Co, signaled to release their shares for business expansion.At that time, Agranet held 59% shares in detik.com, while Tiger had 39% and Mitsui owned the remaining 2%. Mitsui and Tiger Investment appointed Credit Suisse as their stock bidder.However, the negotiation on the price of the news portal, which was reported to reach hundreds billion rupiah, could not end in a deal.In 1998, detik.com was founded by Budiono Darsono and Abdul Rahman with investment as much as IDR100 million. As one online news portal pioneer, detik.com had a very rapid growth.At the moment, Chairuls CT Corp has three business lines. The first is financial services under Mega Corpora. Besides controlling Bank Mega, CT Corp also owns Bank Mega Syariah.CT Corp also handles financing business through PT Para Multifinance, PT Mega Central Finance, and PT Mega Oto Finance. Covering insurance business, CT Corp has PT Mega Insurance.The next business line is media, lifestyle and entertainment under Trans Corpora.Moreover, the other business line handles natural resources, which is managed by CT Global Resources.In mid March 2010, Chairul Tanjungs PT Trans Retail acquired 40% shares of PT Carrefour Indonesia.Trans Retail as subsidiary of Trans Corp, parent company of CT Corp in media, lifestyle, retail and entertainment sector, purchased Carrefour SAs shares in PT Carrefour Indonesia.Such acquisition made Trans Corp as the largest and sole shareholder of PT Carrefour Indonesia. The company also owned Trans Property that engages in property business.Trans Property owned commercial properties like Bandung Supermall, Batam Indah Realty Development and Para Bali Propertindo.Entertainment businessTrans Corp also engages in entertainment sector through its subsidiary Trans Studia Resorts, which owned Trans Studio.Recently, Chairul Tanjung has completed the construction of Trans Studio in Bandung, West Java, with investment value reaching to IDR2 trillion.He plans to build twenty integrated entertainment centers called as Trans Studio Theme Park with total investment of IDR40 trillion until 2020.Prior to Bandung, the company has built the indoor entertainment center in Makassar, South Sulawesi.PT Trans Media Corpora, the owner of Trans TV and shareholder of Trans 7, has secured credit syndication from nine foreign banks amounting to US$450 million with 5 years tenor or overdue in 2016. Such credit facility will be used for refinancing of debt and capital expenditure.They include PT ANZ Panin Bank, BNP Paribas, Citibank N.A Jakarta Branch, Citigroup Global Market Singapore Pte.Ltd, Credit Suisse AG Singapore branch, The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) Limited and ING Bank.About US$350 million of the total US$450 million will be allocated to pay loan that has been used to acquire Carrefour last year.Meanwhile, the remaining US$100 million will be used to finance the construction of new television studio complex in Jakarta. (T04/T06/NOM)