“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 inked 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 million. 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 centuries-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 foreign resource deals and Indonesia’s investment climate.
