Newmont offers 3 percent of its shares to the government

PT Newmont Nusa Tenggara (NNT) has offered three percent of its stake to the government as part of its plan to comply with the mandatory divestment program, Investor Daily reported on Tuesday.

"According to the contract of works, this year Newmont should divest three percent of its shares," Noke Kiroyan, the president of PT Newmont Pacific Nusantara, an affiliate of the Denver-based Newmont Corporation which oversees the company's operation in Indonesia.

He, however, refused to unveil the prices of the shares to be offered, saying that he could not disclose the prices because the government had yet to respond the offer.

Newmont's manager for corporate communications Nunik Maulana said that the offer to buy the three percent shares had been officially submitted to the ministry of energy and mineral resources through the directorate general of coal and geothermal.

Separately, S. Marpaung, a senior official at the ministry, said that NNT, according to the contract, should divest 23 percent of its shares to national companies this year. "However, as 20 percent of the shares have been owned by Pukuafu Indah, a local company owned by Yusuf Merukh, Newmont would only need to divest three percent more," he said.

NNT is 20 percent owned by Pukuafu Indah and 80 percent by Nusa Tenggara Partnership, a joint venture between Newmont Indonesia and Nusantara Mining Corporation with share ownership of 56.25 percent and 43.75 percent respectively.

Marpaung said in the sixth year of the company's operation, 51 percent of NNT shares should be controlled by national companies. "At present, the company's operation has entered the third year and the company needs only to divest 23 percent," he added. (*)