Bumi, a large Indonesian coal company at the heart of an ownership row, is nearing a US$508 million agreement that will have the Bakrie family exit from their investment in the company, sources who have knowledge of the deal have said. The Bakrie family is a co-founder of the family.
The Bakrie Group, as part of a two-stage plan, is negotiating with Bumi Chairman Samin Tan to sell him all of their 23.8% holding in London-listed Bumi, the sources said. The Bakries is said to allocate the funds from the deal to buy back a 29.2% stake in PT Bumi Resources, currently Indonesia's biggest coal exporter, which they agreed to sell to Bumi Plc in 2011.
Under the offer, the Bakries are willing to buy back 10.3% of Bumi Resources for around US$230 million and the remaining Bumi Plc's stake for around US$280 million, the sources said. The conditions of the Bakries' sale of their Bumi Plc holdings to Tan, however, are not yet known.
Bumi has been at the center of a conflict for control between co-founders Nathaniel Rothschild and Indonesia's Bakrie Group since late 2011 where a US$3 billion deal that brought them together went bad.
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