Ancora to acquire only one coal mine this year

PT Ancora Indonesia Resources Tbk has reduced coal mine acquisition target to only one company this year from five as initially planned.

Ancora Indonesia?s Director Usman H. Darus said in Jakarta on Friday that the company was still negotiating to acquire a coal mine with reserves of about 60 million tons in East Kalimantan.

Usman said that the company would have only until the end of this year to negotiate the price with the coal mine owner. ?But we hope we will be able to have a good bargain despite the short period of the negotiation process,? he added.

Ancora earlier planned to acquire five coal mining companies in South and East Kalimantan this year as part of its expansion plan. But the company has reduced the acquisition target only to one company because the lack of time to carry out negotiation.

The company had said that it would team up with Japanese and Malaysian companies to acquire the mining companies.

Usman said that Ancora would go ahead with its acquisition plan even if the company?s foreign partners failed to meet their commitment to cooperate with the company in the acquisition plan.

In addition to the acquisition of the coal mine, Ancora would also increase its ownership in PT Multi Nitrotama Kimia to 50 percent from 40 percent at present. Usman said that Ancora planned to issue rights shares to finance the purchase of 10 percent shares in Multi Nitrotama.

However, said that the company had not yet received an approval from the capital market authority to carry out the right issue plan. (*)