Gadjah Tunggal to pay dividends

JAKARTA (JP): PT Gadjah Tunggal, a publicly-listed holding company in tire manufacturing, will distribute cash dividends of Rp 100 per share and a bonus share for each existing stock.

After annual and extraordinary meetings of shareholders yesterday, the company said in a statement that the dividends and bonus shares will be given to those listed as shareholders on Aug. 10.

As the company's recorded shares total 396 million, the company will pay Rp 39.6 billion for cash dividends, or 43.87 percent of its net profits.

According to its financial reports, the company's net profit increased by 94 percent to Rp 90 billion last year from Rp 47 billion in 1993.

Mulyati Gozali, the company's financial director, noted that the profit increase mainly resulted from the high rise in last year's sales of its products, including tires for motorcycles and cars as well as tire fabrics and cords.

The company recorded total sales of Rp 487 billion last year, up 34 percent from Rp 365 billion in 1993. Of last year's total sales revenues, 79 percent was collected from domestic sales and the rest from exports.

The largest contributor to last year's revenues was the sales of standard car tires, which delivered Rp 296 billion or 61 percent of total revenues, followed by motorcycle tires with Rp 96 billion, radial tires Rp 51 billion and Rp 44 billion from tire cords.

Established in 1951, Gadjah Tunggal in 1991 acquired PT Andayani Megah which produces tire fabrics, and last year it established PT Filamendo Sakti, in joint venture with HICOM Berhad of Malaysia, to produce cording for tires.

The company floated 20 million common shares on the Surabaya and Jakarta stock exchanges in March 1991. Last year, the company issued 198 million rights shares.

Mulyati said the funds from rights issue were used to finance the expansion of its radial-tire production facilities, which needed a total investment of Rp 850 billion. She added that as of last December, the expansion project absorbed a total of Rp 271.8 billion.

"After the completion of the expansion project, our annual production capacity will increase five times to 30,000 radial tires from the current level of 6,000," Mulyati said. (rid)