Photo taken on April 7, 2009 shows the auction for the assets of Sanlu Group at the office building of Hebei Jiahai Auction Co. Ltd. in Shijiazhuang, north China's Hebei Province. Two Hebei-based dairy companies, the Beilande Dairy Co. Ltd and Junlebao, bought back shares previously owned by the Sanlu Group, the bankrupt Chinese dairy firm at the center of the melamine contamination scandal, during an auction held here on Tuesday. [Xinhua]

The second auction of assets of Sanlu Group, the bankrupt Chinese dairy company at the center of last year's melamine scandal, was held on Tuesday in Hebei. Three companies won the bidding to purchase three assets of Sanlu for a total price of 43.2 million yuan (US$6.32 million). Sanyuan, the Beijing-based dairy producer, did not compete at the auction.

Four assets were put up for auction on Tuesday, including 34 percent equity of Hebei Beilande Dairy, 16.97 percent share of Shijiazhuang Junlebao Dairy, 60 percent equity of Anhui Shuanggui Food and 25 percent equity of Henan Huahuaniu Dairy.

The first three assets were bid for at 3.2 million, 25 million and 15 million yuan respectively. No company bid for the last asset, which will be auctioned later.

There are 169 trademarks related to Sanyuan and 12 patents were planned to be auctioned, but for technical reasons, the auction of this part stalled.

On March 4, Sanyuan won the bid to buy Sanlu's core assets for 616.5 million yuan.

(China Daily April 8, 2009)