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Five more companies buy shares from Sanlu Group

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-05-05 16:30

Five more companies on Tuesday bought shares previously owned by the bankrupt Sanlu Group, a Chinese dairy firm at the center of last year's melamine contamination scandal.

Related readings:  Last Sanlu assets fail to sell at auction  Sanyuan acquires Sanlu shares  Two enterprises buy back shares owned by bankrupt Sanlu  Hebei dairy firms look to fresh start

The stakes were auctioned in Shijiazhuang, capital of the northern Hebei province, said sources with the Jiahai Auction Co Ltd.

The assets at the auction Tuesday morning included Sanlu's shares in four Hebei-based companies and a Tianjin company -- the Tianjin Sanlu Co Ltd, from which the Sanlu held 51 percent of the shares. Auction of the company's shares failed to win bids this past April as the starting prices were too high.

The auction was not open to media.

According to an unnamed auctioneer with Jiahai, most of the buyers were shareholders of these enterprises. But he didn't give details of the buyers.

Two more auctions are expected to be held on May 8 and 12, when more shares, as well as trademarks and 12 patent rights, are to be under the hammer.

Four planned auctions of Sanlu's assets have been held -- the last one being the April auction that failed to win any bids.

Sanlu Group, which was based in Shijiazhuang, had been China's leading seller of milk powder for 15 years until the melamine adulteration scandal broke in September last year. The group's revenue hit 10 billion yuan ($1.46 billion) in 2007.

The company's tainted baby milk powder was found to have caused the deaths of at least six children and sickened more than 300,000 others.