Durian. Thousands of employees of an Indonesia’s private agriculture company Tri Bakti Sarimas or TBS have been recently worrying for their future after Riau Police summoning several of them and declaring one of the management staff as a suspect regarding their work at the company’s palm oil plantations and facilities that is situated in Kuantan Sengingi regency in Riau province.
Police auctions towards TBS’s employees were conducted after the Indonesia’s largest lender and state-run company Bank Rakyat Indonesia or BRI, listed at the Indonesia’s Stock Exchanges or IDX, sold the palm oil company’s assets through an e-auction, held by Pekanbaru’s State Assets and Auction Services or KPKNL, on December 28. BRI valued TBS’ asset worth 1.9 trillion rupiah or about 121.1 billion US dollar.
In TBS’s official statement on Wednesday, February 7, Andry Christian, a lawyer who defends TBS, said that at the time the e-auction was held, TBS had been communicating with BRI for mortgage restructuring measures and the company assets were under-valued as based on December 2022’s appraisal that it worth 2.5 trillion rupiah.
”Our client (TBS) is a debtor that has a good intention and had been trying to pay their mortgage and request an ease payment method according to their capacity to BRI,” Andry explained.
However, the auction has resulted a winner which is another agriculture firm named Karya Tama Bhakti Mulia or KTBM that is affiliated with Singapore-based First Resources. First Resources is listed at the Singapore Stock Exchanges or SGX.
In the company’s announcement on January 5, First Resources confirmed that one of its indirect subsidiary KTBM “has successfully bid for the acquisition of plantation assets held by PT Tri Bakti Sarimas” for a cash consideration of 1.9 trillion rupiah.
TBS’s assets that were acquired in the auction according to the announcement are 17,600 hectares, located in Riau province and the auction was aimed “for the execution of mortgage rights held by BRI”.
TBS cannot accept the auction and its result as the company had been negotiation to restructure its mortgage, according to Indonesia’s regulation that is ruled by the Financial Services Authority or OJK. Therefore, the company has filed two legal suits to two separate courts – State Administrative Court and the Central Jakarta District Court – asking for the abortion of the auction as well as the responsibility of BRI and related parties for the “unusual” auction.
“The auction is suspected had been conducted with unusual measures,” TBS legal attorney said.
