Marble producer to sell 40m shares

JAKARTA (JP): PT Citatah, a marble producer, announced yesterday that it will soon sell 40 million shares, or 35 percent, of its total shares through a public offering on the Jakarta Stock Exchange (JSX) to raise Rp 125 billion (US$53 million).

"We will allocate about 50 percent of the public offering proceeds to finance the company's production expansion plan, 20 percent to strengthen its working capital and the remaining 30 percent to repay debts," Citatah's president, Taufik Johannes, said yesterday.

"We actually planned to go public last year but the market was not supportive so we canceled the plan. Moreover, our lead underwriter, PT Lippo Securities, was facing its own problems last year," he said.

He said that the company's monthly production capacity has more than doubled since January from 70,000 square meters to 150,000 square meters after acquiring PT Kuali Indah Ekamaju Makmur.

Citatah, whose main products are floor tiles and wall tiles, has its mines in West Java, while Kuali Indah operates in South Sulawesi.

"We plan to expand our total capacity by 40 percent this year," Taufik said.

"We export 30 percent of our products to ten countries, with the United States as its biggest importer," he said.

He said that based on the data from the Central Bureau of Statistics, Citatah contributed 90 percent to Indonesia's total marble exports in 1994 and about 85 percent during the first nine months of last year.

"The management has decided to increase the export portion from 30 percent to 50 percent of the company's production this year," he said.

Taufik said the company booked total sales of Rp 34.5 billion last year, compared to Rp 30 billion in 1994 and Rp 20 billion in 1993.

The company's net profit rose from Rp 2.5 billion in 1993 to Rp 4.9 billion in 1994 and to Rp 5.6 billion last year, he added.

JSX listing requirements stipulate that a new share issuer must have booked profits in the last two consecutive years. (08)