ISLAMABAD, Oct 1: The re-bidding for the sale of assets of Bolan Textile Mills Machinery on Saturday fetched the highest offer of Rs128 million, which is still Rs13.7 million lower than the minimum acceptable reference price of Rs141.705 million fixed by the Privatization Commission.
Privatization Commission Secretary Tahsin Khan Iqbal, who supervised the final round of bidding, said the Rs128-million bid from Sadaf Enterprise would be accepted and a letter of acceptance would be issued to it immediately, although the highest offer was about 90 per cent of the reference price.
The re-bidding was held on the directives of the Cabinet Committee on Privatization because an earlier offer of Rs110-million received for this Joint Venture of Pakistan and Iran was deemed to be unacceptable for being too low. The CCoP had asked the Privatization Commission to give a last chance to the top three bidders to improve their bids.
The final round was a straight contest among the top three parties — Sadaf Enterprises, SAF and Company and Nawaz Khan Trading Company. During the open bidding round, Sadaf Enterprises won the bid by offering the highest bid of Rs128 million. SAF and Company stood second with an offer of Rs127 million, while Nawaz Khan Trading Company stood lowest with Rs113 million offer.
The Privatization Commission secretary said that a letter of acceptance would be issued to the winning party immediately. He said the CCoP had already authorized the Privatization Commission to approve the acceptable offer, which he disclosed was about 90 of the minimum acceptable price of Rs141.705 million.
Mr Iqbal said that the entire machinery was not under the bid and no land or building was involved in this transaction. Some plants and machinery, land and the building were handed over to the provincial government for establishing the Balochistan University of Science and Technology and Management Sciences, he pointed out.
He justified the decision to approve the bid lower than the reference price by saying that though the reference price was valuated two years back when steel prices were higher and presently they were on lower side, “we maintained that valuated price”.
He said the machinery was not total junk, some of its assets could be utilized.
Earlier, explaining the bidding process, Mr Iqbal informed the participants that the first round of sealed bidding was held on September 15, 2005, which were participated by 12 parties. It was followed by the second open round, which got offers of Rs110 million from Sadaf Enterprises, Rs105 million from SAF and Company and Rs89 million from Nawaz Khan Trading Company. No party could match the minimum price of Rs141.705 million.
In the final round, the highest offer of Rs110 million was the floor price to start the bidding in the presence of print and electronic media.
Bolan Textile Mills is a project of Iran Pakistan Industries (Pvt) Ltd situated at Baleli, District Quetta in Balochistan. The machinery of the mill (spinning, weaving, processing and auxiliaries) was offered on an “as is where is” basis through a competitive process.
The machinery is a part of fully integrated unit of 50,000 spindles, 1,100 looms with complete dyeing and finishing facilities of around 80,000 meters per day production capacity of variable widths ranging from 36 to 96. The plant started production in January 1980 but was closed down in 1983.
