Indonesian food company PT Tiga Pilar Sejahtera Food (AISA) is likely to earmark US$40 million for entering Vietnam through the acquisition of a Vietnamese food firm, an Indonesian newspaper reported Friday.

AISA plans to expand to Vietnam and Malaysia with a budget of $40 million for each market, in a bid to “become a regional player in the [food] industry” there, according to The Jakarta Post.

“We aim to acquire a stake of between 90 percent and 100 percent in a Vietnamese food company as well as a majority stake in a Malaysian food company,” The Jakarta Post quoted AISA finance director Sjambiri Lioe as saying on Thursday.

AISA has only entered an early stage of negotiations with the Malaysian firm, Lioe said, adding talks with the Vietnamese partner are likely to be “complete shortly.”

But the finance director refused to elaborate on which partners the company is in talks with, saying only that one of them is a biscuit maker, according to the largest English-language newspaper in Indonesia.

“Should the acquisition plans go as planned, we will sell the companies’ products on the Indonesian market besides maintaining market share in their countries of origin,” he was quoted as saying.

AISA posted Rp 3.6 trillion ($283.35 million) in net sales during the first nine months of last year, a 24.1 percent increase from the same period in 2013, The Jakarta Post reported, citing the company's Q3 financial report.

The company’s net profits in the Jan-Sep period of 2014 also rose 14 percent from a year earlier to Rp 246.8 billion ($19.43 million).

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