Indonesia’s Bakrie Family to Quit Bumi for $580 Million

Indonesia coal producer Bumi plc said the influential Bakrie family, which has been locked in a battle with London financier Nat Rothschild over control since the com-pany’s 2010 founding, will exit based on a $578 million proposal. “The negotiations have gone well, I’m confident they will come up with the funding,” Bumi CEO Nick von Schirnding told reporters; Bumi was valued at $3 billion when the deal was signed in 2010; it’s now worth $1.3 billion.

The company would sell its 29% stake in Indonesia’s largest coal miner, PT Bumi Resources Tbk, to the Bakries in exchange for leaving its 24% stake in Bumi and $278 mil-lion. Under the cash proposal, Bumi would retain 85% ownership of Indonesia’s fifth-largest coal miner, PT Berau Coal Energy.

Bumi united Rothschild, scion of a cen-turies-old British banking dynasty, and the Bakries, a palm oil-to-property empire with roots in early 1940s Sumatra. Falling stocks and coal prices have accompanied a heated battle underscoring challenging for-eign resource deals and Indonesia’s investment climate.

As featured in Womp 2013 Vol 02 - www.womp-int.com