Nat Rothschild’s bid to replace the board of Indonesian coal miner Bumi has been rejected at an EGM held in London. Shareholders voted down 19 of the 22 resolutions put forward by the financier, including one that would have resulted in him returning to the board. Critically, he failed to win the support of a major shareholder, the Abu Dhabi Investment Council, which voted against his return to the top table.
However, following the EGM, Bumi announced that Samin Tan, whom Mr Rothschild had sought to remove as chairman, would step down – although he will remain on the board as a representative of Bumi's major shareholder. This should have provided some consolation for the scion of the banking dynasty, but he subsequently demanded that the eight independent non-executive directors of Bumi should resign, as they had “demonstrably lost the confidence of the majority of non-aligned shareholders.” Naturally, that claim was rejected out of hand by the Bumi board, which is now in a position to proceed with its plan to finally sever links with Indonesia’s controversial Bakrie family and restructure the board, including the replacement of Mr Tan with a new independent chairman.
Given the extent of Bumi’s share price contraction, it’s hard to imagine that non-aligned shareholders would have much faith in any of the principal players in this farce. Coal prices may have been on the wane, but the market’s focus has been on issues of corporate governance and potential financial scandals linked to the Bakries.
