Marble producer to sell 40m shares

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)