Antam needs government's approval to buy Freeport's shares
Thursday, May 26 2005 - 02:07 AM WIB
Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Purnomo Yusgiantoro said in Jakarta on Wednesday that Antam should first file a formal request to his office if it wanted to buy Indocopper's 9.36 percent stake in Freeport.
Purnomo said that under the existing regulation, mining companies intending to divest a part of their shares should first offer the shares to the government before offering them to other parties.
"The offer should be given to the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources. But we usually forward the offer to the Ministry of Finance, which has the money," he said. "However, most of the offers given to the Ministry of Finance were turned down because it had other priorities," Purnomo added.
Purnomo said that his office had also forwarded the offer to buy Indocopper's shares to the Ministry of Finance but the latter had not given any response. "If the central government was not interested in buying the shares, the offer would be given to the local government in Papua," he said.
Antam said on Tuesday that it had formally asked the state minister of state enterprises to buy Freeport's 9.36 percent shares from Indocopper. The purchase of Freeport's 9.36 percent shares which are estimated to be worth between US$700 million and US$900 million would raise the national interest in the copper and gold mining giant to 18.72 percent.
At present, Freeport is jointly owned by Freeport McMoran Copper and Gold (81.28 percent), Indocopper Investama (9.36 percent) and the Indonesian government (9.36 percent). (*)