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Tag: Bumi

Bumi up on Rothschild bid hopes [update]

Nov 2, 2012 11:14am by Stefan Wagstyl
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Shares in Bumi soared over 12 per cent on Friday on a Reuters report that financier Nat Rothschild was establishing a consortium to launch a counter bid for the troubled mining company.

Such a move would pit Rothschild against the billionaire Indonesian Bakrie family, which set up Bumi in a partnership with Rothschild that has since collapsed in acrimony.

It would also add political spice to the financial arguments, as the people Rothschild has reportedly approached with his plan include Prabowo Subianto, an Indonesian presidential election candidate, whose rivals in the 2014 will include Aburizal Bakrie, the Bakrie family head. Continue reading »

Tags: , Posted in Indonesia |

Indonesia: lessons from Bumi

Nov 1, 2012 3:17pm by Stefan Wagstyl
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Indonesia should consider revamping its corporate governance standards in the wake of the Bumi affair.

Even though the case involves a dispute among private shareholders, the government must tread carefully because the affair is seen as “a bad precedent” for the country.

That’s the view of Chatib Basri, chairman of the government’s investment coordinating board, (pictured) who told beyondbrics of his concern about Bumi’s impact on the investment climate. Continue reading »

Tags: , , , Posted in Asia, Indonesia |

[snap] Nat Rothschild resigns from Bumi PLC board, accusing it of oppressing minority shareholders

Oct 15, 2012 6:35pm by Jonathan Wheatley
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In a dramatic turn to the Bumi PLC saga, Nat Rothschild, the British financier, has resigned from the FTSE 250 coal miner’s board while firing a public broadside at Samin Tan, chairman.

In a letter on Monday he accuses Tan of complicity in oppressing minority shareholders and says it would be a “disgrace” to go ahead with an offer from Indonesia’s powerful Bakrie family that would unwind Bumi’s London listing (see above link). “Based on news reports and other sources,” he writes, “it appears that you shall be reimbursed for your investment at a price of £10.91 a share, whilst other investors see an estimated return of just £4.30 a share. This is a clear breach of the spirit and, I believe, the letter of the takeover code.” Full text of the letter after the break. Continue reading »

Tags: Posted in Asia, Indonesia |

The weekender, October 13

Oct 13, 2012 6:00am by beyondbrics
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Catch up with the week on beyondbrics, with the ten most popular stories from the blog, a few things we’ve learnt, and a chart. This week: Bumi. Continue reading »

Tags: , Posted in Global |

[snap] Bumi jumps 39%

Oct 11, 2012 5:07pm by beyondbrics
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Shares in Bumi closed 39.47 per cent up on Thursday as investors digested the offer by the Bakrie family to exit the London-listed company. At one stage shares were up over 55 per cent.

Read the beyondbrics and FT.com stories.

Tags: Posted in Indonesia |

Bumi: cut your losses, a little bit

Oct 11, 2012 10:38am by Stefan Wagstyl
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Shares in Bumi plc soared on Thursday on a surprise offer from the Bakrie family to split from the company, buy out its assets and return things, more or less, to where they were before they teamed up last year with British financier Nat Rothschild.

The 29 per cent leap to 240p means the shares have doubled since their all-time low of 119.5p last month, when the market was hit by claims of financial irregularities. But shareholders are still left staring at heavy losses: the shares peaked last year at £14 and spent most of 2011 above £10 (the initial deal price) before the Bakries and Rothschild fell out. Continue reading »

Tags: , , , Posted in Asia, Indonesia |

Guest post: Bumi case highlights dangers of global compliance challenges

Sep 26, 2012 11:06am by beyondbrics
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By Steven Williams of CEB

The multi-million dollar discrepancy between asset valuations in London and Indonesia, which has wiped around 50 per cent off the value of the coal miner Bumi’s shares in the past week, is a stark demonstration of the dangers faced by companies expanding their global operations.

Bumi is not the only company which faces the risk of losses from compliance failures. In research we conducted with 125 of CEB‘s member companies around the world, we found 15 per cent of employees had observed some form of corporate misconduct but only a fifth of that information was reported to executives. Corporate centres are effectively flying blind on compliance – and the problem is particularly serious in emerging markets. Continue reading »

Tags: , , , Posted in Asia, Global, Indonesia |

Bumi: from bad to worse

Sep 24, 2012 11:29am by Stefan Wagstyl
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For the smart investor what really matters in emerging markets is not putting the money in – it’s getting it out.

That’s the real test, as investors in Bumi Plc have learnt to their cost. The shares plunged 32 per cent on Monday after the London-listed group, part-owned by financier Nat Rothschild and Indonesia’s Bakrie family, launched an investigation into alleged financial irregularities at one of its Indonesian affiliates. Continue reading »

Tags: , Posted in Indonesia |

Bumi: Tan lays out his plans

Mar 27, 2012 9:06am by Stefan Wagstyl
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The truce at Bumi, the London-listed Indonesian coal miner, seems to be holding.  As expected, the company on Tuesday announced Indonesian billionaire Samin Tan has taken over as chairman following last year’s boardroom row with British financier Nat Rothschild. Rothschild is giving up his position as co-chairman and becoming a rank-and-file director.

Tan declared that “the management changes” would strengthen the team. But shareholders will want to see the new arrangements work before trusting Bumi again. The shares rose 4 per cent in early trading – but are still down 42 per cent over the past year, including a 10 per cent drop last week. Continue reading »

Tags: , , Posted in Asia, Indonesia |

BB: time to register

Dear beyondbrics readers,

After more than three years of fully open access, we are taking the step of asking our readers to register on FT.com to read our articles. Beyondbrics will still be free but we'd like to know a bit more about you, our readers. Other FT blogs (including Alphaville) already do the same thing. Registration is active on beyondbrics from May 6.

Many of you are already registered on FT.com, or are subscribers - in which case, if you are logged in to the site you will not notice any difference. Just carry on as before.

For those of you not yet registered, it's a simple process which only takes a few moments.

Reading beyondbrics articles will NOT deduct from your free monthly quota of stories on FT.com.

Many thanks

Stefan Wagstyl, emerging markets editor

Global equities macromap

Number of the day

-0.2% Fall in Polish retail sales in April, rather worse than 1.1 per cent growth expected.

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