Bumi shares leap on sale of Rosan Roeslani's pivotal 10% stake

Shares in beleaguered Indonesian coalminer Bumi jumped by nearly 5% yesterday after major investor Rosan Roeslani sold his pivotal 10% stake in the group ahead of a crucial vote on Thursday.

Roeslani is selling his stake, worth just over £90 million at Friday’s closing price, to Indonesia’s Tanoesoedibjo family, which owns the country’s biggest media company, and two funds.

Bumi was set up in November 2010 when Indonesia’s Bakrie brothers reversed some of their coal assets into financier Nat Rothschild’s London-listed cash shell.

The co-founders have been at loggerheads ever since and things  are set to come to a head on Thursday when shareholders are being asked to vote on an audacious proposal by Rothschild to oust 12 of Bumi’s 14 directors.

Roeslani is selling his stake after the Takeover Panel ruled in December that he was acting “in concert” with the Bakrie brothers and ordered the party to sell down their majority stake to 29.9%.

The panel ruled today that it did not consider the three parties, which also include Avenue Asia Capital Management and Argyle Street Management, to be acting with the Bakries. This means they will be able to vote on Thursday and their stake could decide the outcome of the vote.

It is not known how the three parties would vote, although analysts speculated that Mr Roeslani would ideally have sought to sell the shares to somebody who was supportive of the Bumi board, which strongly opposed Mr Rothschild’s proposal.

Mr Rothschild, the Bakries and the Bumi board want to see the Bakrie family exiting from Bumi, but there the agreement ends.

Hit by falling thermal coal prices, boardroom disputes and an independent investigation into potential wrongdoing at Bumi’s Indonesian affiliates, the shares are trading at about a third of their June 2011 initial public offering price.

Shares in Bumi rose by 16.7p, or 4.4 per cent, to close at 394.0p.