Bareksa.com - PT Indofood Sukses Makmur, Indonesia's biggest instant noodle maker, aims for 10-20 percent growth in revenues this year, helped by its acquisition of vegetable processor China Minzhong Food Corp Ltd , it said on Friday.

The company is also targeting capital expenditure of 9.6 trillion rupiah ($838.8 million), around 60 percent higher than a year earlier, to build more factories and expand in Asia, officials told reporters at a briefing.

Indofood, whose market value is around $5.4 billion, posted revenues of 57.7 trillion rupiah in 2013, up 15 percent from the previous year.

"The main reason why we are expanding overseas is because in the long term, there is a lot of knowledge and know-how from other countries that cannot be found in Indonesia. There are also many good assets in Indonesia that are not being released by their owners," President Director Anthoni Salim said.

In the past few years, Indofood has formed joint ventures in Brazil, China, the Philippines and Japan. But Salim declined to disclose specific countries where it plans to expand next.

The Indonesian company launched a takeover offer for China Minzhong in September and controlled nearly 83 percent of the Chinese firm at the end of 2013.

Last year, Indonesian companies made 11 acquisitions overseas valued at a total $1.1 billion, down from 23 deals worth $2.8 billion in 2012, according to Thomson Reuters data which took into account the net debt of the target firms.

Deals announced in the past few weeks, however, could point to a pick-up in corporate acquisitions. State energy firm PT Pertamina said on Thursday it is planning to buy mostly overseas oil and gas assets to help raise its output.

Last week, state gas utility company Perusahaan Gas Negara said it is acquiring a 36 percent participating interest in a U.S. block for $175 million. PT Semen Indonesia , Indonesia's biggest cement producer, agreed to buy a stake worth about $30 million in a cement maker in Myanmar. ($1 = 11,445.5000 rupiah)

(Source : Reuters)