THE Bakrie family’s shareholder partner in Bumi, Samin Tam, is due in London this week in a bid to persuade institutional shareholders to oust Nat Rothschild off the board of the coal-mining company.
The Bakries – who set up their venture with Rothschild just over a year ago – sold half their stake in Bumi last November to a group backed by Indonesian businessman Samin Tan, helping them to avoid default on a $1.35bn loan.
In a surprise statement on Friday, the Bakrie family and Tan, who together control a 29.9 per cent voting stake, called for an extraordinary general meeting to discuss a shake-up of the board.
Tan has proposed himself and Indra Bakrie as co-chairmen – the role currently held by Rotschild – and has also tabled resolutions to remove four other directors including James Campbell, a former Anglo American head of coal and fellow founder of Bumi, chief executive Ari Hudaya, who is also chief executive of part-owned, listed miner PT Bumi, and chief financial officer Andrew Beckham.
The London-listed Bumi was formed when Rothchild’s cash shell Vallar bought stakes in two Indonesian coal mining companies called Berau and PT Bumi Resources forming Bumi in a reverse takeover.
The latest move has sparked speculation of a deepening rift between Rothschild and his Indonesian partners, after he wrote a letter to Hudaya calling for a “radical cleaning up” of PT Bumi Resources corporate governance culture.
The two sides appeared to have made amends in December after Rothschild met Indra Bakrie in Singapore and the Bakries agreed on a debt repayment schedule for 2012.
