Vallar Completes Acquiring 75% Berau Stake, Recapital Says

Vallar Plc (VAA), Nathaniel Rothschild’s investment vehicle, completed acquiring a 75 percent stake in Indonesia’s PT Berau Coal Energy from PT Bukit Mutiara today, Recapital Group said. 

The transfer was completed at 10:40 a.m. Jakarta time, Thomas Warren Shreve, chief executive officer of Recapital Group, the parent of Bukit Mutiara, said in an e-mailed response to Bloomberg News. Shreve is also a director at Berau. 

Vallar agreed in November to invest $3 billion in PT Bumi Resources and Berau Coal in a stock and cash transaction to tap access to an emerging market in Indonesia, the world’s largest thermal-coal exporter, amid surging demand for the fuel from China and India. Vallar will be renamed Bumi Plc after the completion of the deals. 

The purchase will be effective after the share swap between Vallar and Berau Coal takes place when the London Stock Exchange opens, Shreve said. 

“The acquisition has brought together significant holdings in Indonesia’s largest and fifth-largest coal producers to create a London-listed Indonesian coal champion,” Rothschild, co-chairman of Vallar, wrote today in an e-mailed statement to Bloomberg. “Both Bumi and Berau have strong organic growth profiles, with operations and projects that are perfectly positioned to take full advantage of the current high demand for coal from the fast growing markets of Asia.” 

Vallar planned to buy 26.2 billion shares of Berau Coal at 540 rupiah each or for a total of 14.1 trillion rupiah ($1.63 billion), Recapital, which helped sell the stake, said in a statement to the stock exchange April 6. Vallar completed the acquisition of a 25 percent stake in Bumi last month.

Bumi Stake

After the purchases, Bakrie Group, the parent of Bumi, will own about 54.6 percent of Vallar and Bukit Mutiara will have about 13.2 percent in the Jersey, Channel Islands-based company, Vallar said in a statement March 4. 

PT Bakrie & Brothers gained as much as 3.1 percent to 67 rupiah a share, before settling at 66 rupiah, 1.5 percent higher, at the 11:30 a.m. break in Jakarta trading. Berau was unchanged at 560 rupiah a share. 

Vallar may raise its stake in Bumi this year to 51 percent, the Financial Times reported yesterday, citing Andrew Beckham, chief financial officer of both Vallar and Bumi. Eddy Soeparno, chief financial officer at Bakrie, confirmed the plan without specifying stake sizes. 

Rothschild is a former co-president of New York-based hedge-fund firm Atticus Capital LLC and the only son of British financier Lord Jacob Rothschild. Vallar raised 707.2 million pounds ($1.2 billion) in an initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange in July.Source: Reuters