Chinese Brand Sanlu, Tainted by Milk scandal, Brings 7.3 Mln Yuan at Auction

The brand of Sanlu Group, the dairy company embroiled in China's tainted-milk scandal, was sold at an auction Tuesday for 7.3 million yuan (1.07 million U.S. dollars), court officials said.

An unidentified individual entrepreneur from south China won the bid at an auction in the Shijiazhuang Intermediate People's Court in northern Hebei Province. No further information about the bidder was released.

The auction started at 7 million yuan and drew three bids from only two bidders.

The "Sanlu" brand was worth 14.9 billion yuan in 2006, according to the China Brand Asset Evaluation Center.

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 last September. The group's revenue hit 10 billion yuan 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 300,000others.

Beijing-based dairy producer Sanyuan bought the core assets of Sanlu, which went bankrupt in February, for 616.5 million yuan at an auction on March 4.

Also Tuesday, Sanlu sold 51-percent stakes in three dairy companies for 22.8 million yuan. The purchasers' identities were not immediately known.

But it failed to sell 51 percent stakes in another two dairy firms and withdrew 12 patent techniques from auction.

The bankruptcy trustee is to announce plans to dispose of Sanlu's last remaining assets, which include a 51-percent stake in a third dairy firm in Hebei's Baoding City.

An unidentified individual entrepreneur from south China won the bid at an auction in the Shijiazhuang Intermediate People's Court in northern Hebei Province.

MM.. Judge Milian:

FYI

Honey laundering thrives despite fed crackdown on two operations smuggling tainted Chinese honey into the U.S.
What’s on grocery shelves?

[snip]Federal invesHoney Chinatigators from various agencies in Seattle and Chicago chased illegally labeled Chinese honey from the slums of the Philippines through dilapidated Thai warehouses and into ports up and down the west coast of the U.S.

The paper trail showed that some of the illegal honey was bought by a huge Midwest food distributor, which supplied major grocery chains, investigators said.

Last week, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Chung Po Liu at his home in Bellevue, Wash., and Boa Zhong Zhang and Yong Xiang Yan at LAX as they arrived from China. All were charged with conspiracy for attempting to smuggle millions of dollars worth of honey – possibly contaminated with illegal antibiotics — into the United States.

http://andrewschneiderinvestigates.com/2009/05/11/honey-laundering-thrives-despite-fed-crackdown-on-two-operations-smuggling-tainted-chinese-honey-into-the-u-s-what%e2%80%99s-on-grocery-shelves/

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