Private company plans to buy Indocopper's 9.36% stake in Freeport

A local company has expressed its interest to buy Indocopper Investama's 9.6 percent stake in PT Freeport Indonesia as the provincial administration in Papua will unlikely have enough funds to buy the stake, Bisnis Indonesia reported on Monday.

The interest of the local company to buy Indocopper's shares was unveiled by Director General of Mineral and Coal at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Simon F. Sembiring at a mining discussion in Jakarta last week.

Simon refused to unveil the name of the local company. But he said that it would be possible for the company to take over Indocopper's shares because the Papua government, the priority buyer of the shares, had not enough funds for the purchase.

Indocopper was formerly owned by former president Soeharto's close friend Bob Hasan, but it was later taken over by an affiliate of Freeport majority shareholder Freeport McMoran Copper. The Freeport majority shareholder planned to divest its ownership in Indocopper to maintain the national interest in Freeport at about 20 percent.

"Besides, the central government, the Papua provincial administration, a private national company is also allowed to buy the shares," he said.

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).

State owned mining company PT Aneka Tambang has previously expressed its interest in buying the share ownership of both Indocopper and the Indonesian government in the gold mining giant. (*)