.Tuesday, January 29, 2008 ; 8:37 PM -

.His Mercy is New everY mornInG.

My favorite company is finally going to be listed. It will be interesting to see how this giant is preparing itself to compete in the roller coaster ride of stock market.

Pertamina may have initial public offering of shares by end of 2008

JAKARTA: Pertamina, Indonesia's state oil company, said it may be ready for an initial public offering by the end of 2008 after weeding out corruption and improving accounting procedures.

The company would have a market value of $30 billion, making it the biggest stock on the Jakarta Stock Exchange, the company's president, Ari Soemarno, said last week. Pertamina hired the consulting firm McKinsey to improve corporate governance and tapped Schlumberger, the world's largest oilfield services provider, to evaluate exploration capabilities, he said.

"Investor appetite would obviously be great as Pertamina still holds monopoly rights," said Andi Nugroho, a fund manager at Cipta Dana Asset Management. "The question is how the management is willing to commit to transparency, a weak area that state-controlled companies typically have."

Pertamina's market value may exceed Telekomunikasi Indonesia's 193.5 trillion rupiah, or $21 billion. The oil company wants to raise money to fund its oil and gas exploration and reverse a drop in output.

Pertamina, which plans to double output in the next four years, forecasts $40 billion of revenue this year.

A share sale has to be decided and approved by the Indonesian government, Soemarno said.

The government, which runs 141 companies, will keep its stake in 50 of them in sectors such as energy, transportation and telecommunications, and sell part of its holdings in the rest, Indonesia's vice president, Jusuf Kalla, said in November.

The Indonesian government in 2003 had planned to sell part of its stake in Pertamina by 2006. The company at that time said it needed more time to prepare for the sale.

"Before an IPO our accounting, financial and corporate governance system has to be proper," Soemarno said yesterday. "We want a transparent system that will create value for the company."

Pertamina asked the government to reduce the amount of dividend taken from the company because the oil producer wants the proceeds to fund exploration, Soemarno said. Last year Pertamina paid about 45 percent of its profit to the government.

Just one week shy of its announcement of rouge trade scandal in SocGen, the company actually spent USD 69k (or is it 34k?) on sports hospitality organised by my company. Well of course such amount is peanuts compared to the amount SocGen lost in rouge trading. How can such scandal goes undetected for so long considering hundreds of experts are inside that Bank. Obviously some one or some people are not doing their job. We'll see whether there's any cancellation coming. Hope not. B will have to forgo his higher bracket if that happens.

The market has been rather interesting to watch lately. Investors scurrying towards the exit as rumors of US economy recessions loom overhead. Asia market has been a sucker when it comes to its dependency of US market. When US plummets, Asia practically spirals in free fall style. I wonder how long this will last. We'll see. We'll see. How come I never take any biz module. At least I won't be so clueless.

Anyway, it has been sometimes since I last blog. I have been under the weather for the past week. Down with flu and cough. Doc said I have slight throat inflammation. Is it because I talk to much? LoL. He gave me the usual cold medicine with an extra dose of drowsiness. Yep, I am in a state of sleepiness throughout the day. Of course I am not working. How to work when I can't even stand up and not feeling light and giddy.

Again, my deals came in when I am not around. How weird can this be? 2 from Telkom (they booked with me twice!!officially my fav company) yesterday afternoon and 1 from Delta Thailand today. My colleagues helped me tied up the loose ends. I negotiated the time and how the form are coming in. R helped me to "remind" them that the form need to be sent in. Probably S or R helped me with the booking. Out of 17, 6 are from me. Thank God for His mercy and grace. The last 3 deals didn't involve any pitching. They just came! See how awesome God is. I mean He is still good no matter what happen. But it is in His grace and mercy that He brings these 3 deals for me. 2 more coming by the end of the week.

The pressure is still on. We need to bring the number to 25 by end of the week. How? I don't know. Honestly, I am clueless. Let's see God works miracles again. Yep, I am in need of some serious miracle.