Korea Zinc pulls $1.8 billion share sale plan after probe
The world’s largest zinc smelter has been caught up for months in a fight between its largest shareholders over strategy and direction.
Banking empire scion Nat Rothschild’s Bumi plc, which owns chunks of the Bakrie dynasty of Indonesia’s coal assets, has lost his bid to replace the board of the embattled company.
Shareholders voted down 19 of the 22 proposals from Rothschild that would have seen the sacking of 12 of the 14 directors of the London-listed firm.
Samin Tan, Bumi’s current chairman would however step down, but Rothschild who resigned from the board last year would gain no greater control of the company or its Indonesian operating subsidiaries.
Bumi plc was created in 2010 when Rothschild, descendant of the founder of the two-centuries old banking empire, used a cash shell, Vallar, to list the coal and other mining interest in London which provided the members of Sumatran family a high profile in the West in a $3 billion deal.
But only two years later, Bumi plc is beset by bitter recriminations between the Rothschild and the Bakries, a probe by the UK market regulator, allegations of financial impropriety, email hacking and disastrous derivatives trades.
