Telkomsel acquisition deal

Telkomsel acquisition deal

JAKARTA (JP): PT Telekomunikasi Selular (Telkomsel), one of
the country's three operators of the Global System for Mobile
(GSM) communications, finalized yesterday the sales of its shares
to private companies through direct investment placement.

The documents were signed here by the president for Asia of
PTT Telecom Netherlands, Jan Volbeda, the chief commissioner of
PT Setdco Megacell Asia, Setiawan Djody, and a director of PT
Telkom, Harry Supangkat.

Yesterday's signing ended the process of Telkomsel share
acquisition, with 42.72 percent of the GSM operator belonging to
Telkom, 35 percent to PT Indosat, 17.28 percent to PTT Telecom
and 5 percent to Setdco.

Under yesterday's deal, PTT Telecom and Setdco finalized their
payments for the share acquisition, by paying US$229.04 million
and $83.79 million respectively to Telkomsel -- causing PTT
Telecom to transfer $304 million for the deal and Setdco $88
million -- while Telkom paid $109.89 million.

Telkomsel was incorporated in 1995 with 49 percent of its
shares owned by Indosat and 51 percent by Telkom, both of which
are state-owned telecommunications providers listed on domestic
and international stock exchanges.

Telkomsel's president, Koesmarihati Sugondo, said yesterday
that her company currently has 85,000 customers or 28.3 percent
of the 300,000 cellular telephone subscribers in Indonesia.

"We expect to increase the number of our subscribers to
150,000 by the end of this year and to 450,000 by the year 2000,"
Koesmarihati said.

Telkomsel will also increase its investment from Rp 450
billion at present to Rp 700 billion by the end of 1996. (icn)