Texmaco buys British clothes manufacturer

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)