Salim to float Indomobil soon, BCA next year

JAKARTA (JP): The giant Salim Group plans to float its automotive arm PT Indomobil on local stock markets this year and PT Bank Central Asia (BCA) next year.

The group's executive Benny S. Santoso told journalists at the sidelines of a capital market conference here yesterday that the group was also preparing other companies, especially those in plantations and distribution, to enter local stock exchanges.

"We will continue to prepare our companies. As we planned, we expect Indomobil will enter the market this year. Next year will be BCA," Benny said.

Indomobil is the country's third largest auto producer after publicly listed PT Astra International and PT Krama Yudha Tiga Berlian. Last year, it sold 60,000 vehicles, a drop from 70,000 in 1995.

But no financial statements on Indomobil were made available to the public.

Indomobil assembles various automobiles from Japan, South Korea and Europe. They include vehicles under the brand names of Suzuki, Mazda, Nissan, Ssangyong and Volvo. Currently it also helps produce the national Timor sedan. It will also assemble the luxury Porshe car.

BCA is the country's largest private bank in terms of assets. Its assets totaled Rp 35.26 trillion (US$12.15 billion) at the end of last year, an increase from Rp 25.94 trillion in 1995.

BCA posted a net profit of Rp 168.9 billion in 1996, up from Rp 115.77 billion in 1995.

Benny said the Salim Group would continue to increase shareholders value of the group's publicly listed firms to maintain minority shareholders' confidence in the group.

"We always pay attention to the interests of minority shareholders so they are happy investing in our companies," Benny said.

"We must satisfy our minority investors. So, if any of our companies don't perform so good, we will improve to make minority shareholders happy. Otherwise, we will be abandoned," he added.

Benny said the planned controversial restructuring in the group's cement firm PT Indocement Tunggal Prakarsa and foodstuff firm PT Indofood Sukses Makmur also aimed to improve the shareholders value.

Indocement has proposed a spin-off and sale of its 50.1 percent share in Indofood to QAF, a tiny foodstuff company listed in Singapore, which is also 70 percent controlled by the group.

Under the proposed spin-off, Indocement would give most of its Indofood shares to the existing shareholders as a special dividend and sell the remaining shares to the Sampoerna family, which currently has a 5.63 percent stake in the food giant.

QAF would then buy Salim Group's 45 percent stake in Indofood through three locally incorporated firms, in addition to the 5.6 percent Indofood stake it would directly buy from the Sampoerna family.

This will allow the Singaporean company to have a 50.1 percent stake in Indofood. QAF will issue right shares and seek loans to fund the acquisition.

Benny, who is also an Indocement executive director, said the spin-off aimed to improve Indocement's performance in stock markets and shareholders value.

So far, Indocement shares performed below par, compared with other listed cement companies -- state-owned PT Semen Gresik and PT Semen Cibinong.

The price earning ratio of Indocement's cement business was only 6.5 times, compared to the ratio of Semen Gresik and Semen Cibinong which could reach between 10 and 15 times.

"We are confident after restructuring Indocement that it will perform better in stock markets because so far our margin is better than our competitors," Benny said.

But the planned restructuring must be approved by minority shareholders before Indocement goes ahead with the plan. The shareholders will decide this at a special shareholders meeting scheduled for Aug. 21.

"I don't see any reason for minority shareholders not to approve our plan because what we do is for their sake. So we are confident they will approve our plan," he said. He was also confident QAF's minority shareholders would approve the plan because QAF would not stop buying Indofood but would expand its food business across Asia.

"We will make QAF an Asian food maker with Indofood as its basis... There must be an interesting story ahead. If not, they will not buy QAF's planned rights issues," Benny said. (rid)