Germany’s biggest cement maker, HeidelbergCement AG, raised Rp 3.12 trillion (US$312 billion) Wednesday from divesting 14.1 percent of shares in Indonesia’s second-largest cement producer, PT Indocement Tunggal Prakarsa.

Indocement confirmed the sale of assets, saying Heidelberg had sold 520.5 million shares under a deal estimated to be worth 220 million euros ($310.9 million), Indocement corporate secretary Dani Handayani told The Jakarta Post.

The cement company’s share price rose 8.8 percent to Rp 7,450 in Jakarta on Wednesday, its highest close in 15 months. HeidelbergCement’s share price increased 3.6 percent to 28.56 euros at 11:29 a.m. in Frankfurt.

“The divestment was made because Heidelberg wanted to use the proceeds to pay off its debts,” Dani said.

Bloomberg reported earlier that Heidelberg, owned by billionaire Ludwig Merckle, which ran up debts in the $12 billion takeover of Hanson Plc., was planning to sell as much as 2 billion euros of assets, cut costs and reduce investment to retrieve cash.

“Disposals are one of the pillars for our refinancing concept,” HeidelbergCement spokeswoman Brigitte Fickel said as quoted by Bloomberg.

“We will continue to look at non-core assets for a possible sale.”

Heidelberg took control of Indocement, which has an output capacity of 17.1 million tons, in 2001 in a transaction valued at $300 million.

After the sale of assets, Dani said Indocement would now be 51 percent owned by Heidelberg, 13.03 percent by the Salim Group, 14.1 percent by the new investors and the remainder by the public.

The identity of the stake buyers remains unclear, as the letter only stated Heidelberg had sold its stake to “international institutional investors”, Dani said.

Salim Group representative Anthony Salim previously said it was considering buying the Heidelberg stake. However, no statement was issued by the group confirming the purchase.

Indocement posted a 32 percent increase in net profit to Rp 502 billion in the first quarter of this year.

Last year, Indocement produced 12.3 million tons of cement in 2008, 15 percent more than the 10.7 million tons it produced in 2007, bringing the company’s market share slightly higher to 31.7 percent from 30.9 percent in 2007.

According to Danareksa Research, Indocement does not plan any major expansion in the near term.

In the longer term, however, it is looking at the possible development of a new plant with a time frame beyond 2012.

Indocement’s management said it intended to maintain its selling prices despite the weaker sales volume.

The company management expects demand to remain weak and foresees a 6 percent decline.

Indocement aims to increase its market share in the aggregates business to 15 percent of total market from the current 10 percent.

Cement producers expect domestic sales to increase by 3 percent this year, much slower than the 12 percent growth posted in 2008, with some growth continuing thanks in part to the government’s Rp 71.3 trillion ($7 billion) economic stimulus package.

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