Monday, July 4, 2011

Credit Suisse helps Chairul Tanjung acquire detik.com

Trans Corpora, own by Tycoon Chairul Tanjung hired Credit Suisse to value detik.com. Chairul Tanjung has agreed to buy Agranet Multicitra Siberkom, which operates the country’s biggest news portal, detik.com.

Trans Corpora operates Trans TV and Trans7, two major television stations. Last year, detik.com posted revenues of Rp 120 billion ($14 million), and this year it was expecting Rp 180 billion.

According to Alexa.com, which ranks Internet traffic and page view data, Detik.com was as the 11th most popular Web site in Indonesia behind Facebook, Google, Blogger, Yahoo, YouTube, Kaskus, WordPress and Twitter. It ranked first in terms of news portals, followed by Vivanews and Kompas. Agranet owned a 59 percent stake in Detik.com. Two other investors, Tiger Investment and Mitsui, which own 39 percent and 2 percent respectively,

Detik.com was founded in 1998 by Budiono Darsono and Abdul Rahman, a former senior journalist at Tempo magazine. The portal was set up as the country’s first online media platform after the Detik tabloid, Budiono’s previous employer, and Tempo were liquidated by former President Suharto. Chairul has been expanding his business interests in recent years. Last year, Trans Corp acquired a 40 percent stake in Carrefour Indonesia, the local subsidiary of global retailer Carrefour. Para Group also owns Bank Mega, a mid-sized lender.

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