Beijing-based Sanyuan Group successfully bid 49 million yuan (US$7.2 million) on Thursday to buy a 95-percent stake in the Sanlu (Shandong) dairy company, previously owned by the Sanlu Group, the bankrupt dairy firm at the center of the melamine contamination scandal.

The shares were put up for sale at an auction in the northern city of Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei Province, according to sources with the Hebei Jiahai Auction Co. Ltd.

Four companies participated in the auction, which started at 10 a.m., with the opening bid of 33 million yuan.

"The company is happy with the result," said a representative of Sanyuan after the auction, but he refused to comment further.

Sanlu (Shandong), which was set up in 2006, specializes in making and selling liquid milk products. The company changed its name to Shandong Ecological Pasture Co. Ltd. in October last year.

The other three bidders were Beijing investment consultancy Tongde Tongyi, a Hebei food company Xiangyao, and Wandashan dairy company in northeast Heilongjiang Province.

Auctioneer Yuan Guoliang told Xinhua that "the four bidders had clear idea about the value of the shares, and the atmosphere was tense."

However, the sale of a Sanlu's 70-percent stake in the Tangshan Sanlu company had been revoked just before the auction.

Sanyuan Group successfully bid 616.5 million yuan to buy Sanlu's core assets on March 4.

Sanlu Group, which was based in Shijiazhuang, had been China's leading seller of milk powder for 15 years until the melamine scandal broke in September last year. The group's revenue hit 10 billion yuan in 2007, when Sanyuan's revenue was only 1 billion yuan.

(Xinhua News Agency April 9, 2009)