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Source: ONE News -
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Five more Chinese companies have bought shares previously owned by the bankrupt Sanlu Group, a Fonterra joint venture at the centre of last year's melamine contamination scandal.
The stakes were auctioned in Shijiazhuang, capital of the northern Hebei Province, according to sources with the Jiahai Auction Co Ltd, the Chinese newsagency Xinhua reported.
The assets included Sanlu's shares in four Hebei-based companies and a Tianjin company - Tianjin Sanlu Ltd.
An earlier attempt to auction the company's shares last month failed to attract bids.
The auction was not open to media, but an unnamed auctioneer said most of the buyers were other shareholders in the companies.
Two more auctions are expected to be held tomorrow and on May 12, when more shares, as well as trademarks and 12 patent rights, are to be sold.
Fonterra's farmers wrote off the $200 million they invested in the company, and control of it passed to a court-appointed receiver.
Sanlu Group, which was based in Shijiazhuang, was China's leading seller of milk powders for 15 years with revenue of 10 billion yuan ($NZ2.6 billion) in 2007.
When the melamine adulteration scandal broke in September last
year the company's tainted baby milkpowder was found to have
contributed to making more than 300,000 children ill. Six children
died.
