Astra suffering for Indonesia's woes

With the Jakarta government unable to end the debt problems created by the 1997/98 crisis, even former market darlings such as PT Astra International have been running into problems

Of all the fascinating business stories to unfold in Asia in 2002, the tale of PT Astra International stands out. Indonesia's dominant automaker and the eighth largest company in Jakarta's stock market has seen its shares soar 61% this year. Investors bought the company after creditors agreed in December to reschedule payments on more than $800m of foreign debt. In recent days, though, investors have begun wondering about, well, all that debt. They initially loved Astra's plan to raise as much as 1.43 trillion rupiah ($160m) in a sale of new shares to help repay debt. Then they looked a...