Texmaco buys British clothes manufacturer

LONDON (JP): Indonesia's textile manufacturer Texmaco Group has ended months of speculation surrounding the future of the British clothing manufacturing company S R Gent by taking it over for US$48 million.

Texmaco's spokesman in London, Adrian Ould, said Monday the group's chairman Marimutu Sinivasan had been searching for a way to enter Britain's mainland clothing industry for the past 12 months.

Texmaco earlier bought into Northern Ireland's synthetic yarn making firm Norfil.

Ould said that Sinivasan, a regular visitor to Britain, was attracted to the company when he discovered that his favorite British clothing store, Marks and Spencer, sold R S Gents products.

"He likes Britain generally and likes the high quality of Marks and Spencer's clothes," Ould said.

"He made the move for S R Gent because it has a balance of production in Britain and abroad, and because of its well thought of clothing design center in London," he said.

S R Gent operates eight factories across Britain and a clothes design center in London with over 3,000 employees.

The company's main shareholders, Peter Wolff and Peter Wetzel, made $14.4 million each from the deal.

"After a period of great uncertainty the offer represents a fair value for R S Gent. The company has a new owner committed to textile manufacturing and who values the skills and technical ability of our workforce," company chief executive Mike Stakol said.

Texmaco's flagship Polysindo Eka Perkasa was listed in the 1997 list of Asia's most competitive companies, based on a survey by the monthly business magazine Asia Inc.

The company and its publicly listed subsidiary PT Texmaco Jaya has annual capacities of 360,000 tons of Purified terephthalic acid, 330,400 tons of polymer, 180 tons of polyester staple fiber and more than 220 million yards of fashion fabric. (50/jsk)