Jakarta – PT Indofood Sukses Makmur, the largest instant noodle maker in Indonesia, is buying control of six affiliated companies for 1.75 trillion rupiah (S$1.05 billion), or about 15 times their projected 1996 profit.

The acquisition of 80 per cent stakes in each of the companies, which before tax will put about 1.4 trillion rupiah in the pockets of the Salim family, will require minority shareholder approval at a meeting scheduled for March 17. The Salim family controls both Indofood and the companies being acquired.

Indofood said the companies had consolidated net profit of 98.29 billion rupiah in the first 10 months of 1996. If that performance is annualised, they would have made 117.9 billion rupiah in 1996.

Indofood expects the new purchases will contribute about 200 billion rupiah to 1997 net profit, said Ivy Santosa, who covers the company for Deutsche Morgan Grenfell Securities in Jakarta. That is a good enough profit boost to justify the acquisition price, she said.

Among the companies to be acquired are PT Indomarco, a distributor of food products made by the Salim group, a series of plantations that produce palm oil and PT Intiboga Sejahtera, a packager of edible oils that has about 50 per cent of the brand-name market for food oils in Indonesia.

One of the companies being acquired, PT Salim Ovomas Pratama, has five wholly-owned subsidiaries.

In a preliminary prospectus on the share sale and purchases released on Saturday, Indofood said it will raise 1.25 trillion rupiah with a sale of 381.5 million new shares for 3,300 rupiah each. Each holder of four Indofood shares on March 18 will receive the right to buy one new share.

The issue price is at the low end of a 3,300 to 4,000 rupiah range the company had set earlier this month.