Two dairy companies on Tuesday bought back shares previously owned by the Sanlu Group, the bankrupt Chinese dairy firm at the center of the melamine contamination scandal.

The stakes 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.

The Beilande Dairy Co. Ltd, a Hebei-based company, bought back 34 percent of its shares for 3.2 million yuan (US$470), the opening bid.

Another Hebei-based diary company, Junlebao, paid 25 million yuan, equal to the opening bid, to purchase 16.7 percent of its shares.

"I am satisfied with the whole auction process, and it went without a hitch," said Shi Lihui, vice manager of Beilande.

The Hebei Tongfu Food Co. Ltd. bought 60 percent of the shares in the Anhui Shuangjia Food Company, which had been owned by Sanlu, for 15 million yuan.

However, Sanlu's 25 percent stake in the Henan Huahuaniu Dairy group failed to get the reserve price.

The assets of Sanlu up for auction included Sanlu's shares in four dairy plants as well as 169 of its protected trademarks and 12 patent rights.

However, the auction of trademarks and patent rights was suspended for "technical reasons", according to the auction company.

Beijing-based Sanyuan Group successfully bid 616.5 million yuan (US$90 million) to buy Sanlu's core assets on March 4.

Sanyuan had said it would continue to bid for other assets of Sanlu, but it issued a statement on Saturday saying, "The company has no intention of buying other bankrupt assets of the Sanlu Group at present."

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

(Xinhua News Agency April 7, 2009)