A torrid corporate divorce
ONE of the most acrimonious corporate divorces in recent British history was sealed in an online flurry of insults this week as Nat Rothschild and a member of Indonesia’s Bakrie family taunted each other on Twitter at the end of the restructuring of Bumi, the troubled coal miner.
“Thanks for buying back a worthless pile of . . . ,” tweeted Rothschild of the illustrious banking family to Aga Bakrie, son of the chairman of the powerful family business group.
“Whilst your dad is an evil genius . . . the word on the street is that you are extremely DUMB!”
“Haha”, tweeted Bakrie in response. “‘Dumb’ I believe that’s the word that has been associated with you by most of the people that i have met.”
The interchange was a fitting sulphurous coda to a disastrous business tie-up between Rothschild and the Bakrie family, which began in 2010 after the financier raised $700-million from investors in London to invest in mining assets.
Bumi, the $3-billion company created from a stake in a Bakrieowned coal miner, had ambitions to become a blue chip, UK-listed mining group.
Instead, the founders fell out, and Bumi became a byword for poor governance and financial irregularities.
Bumi’s largest investors and executives have spent months trying to unpick the deal.
It led to this week’s separation in which the Bakries quit the company, now renamed Asia Resource Minerals, while buying back their stake in their coal asset.
“Bumi resources back to Indonesia. . . Protect Country resources from imperialist. Good bye London. . .” tweeted Bakrie.
“What about protect minority shareholders from Bakrie? Why is investing 1.2b into Indo bad for indonesia you dumb schmuck?!” retorted Rothschild, the 42-yearold former hedge-fund manager.
“Indonesia is an amazing investment haven make no mistake. . . It’s only bad when a minority try to take control by dirty trick,” replied Bakrie.
Rothschild, who prides himself on his bulging contacts book, has a relatively modest 400 Twitter followers. Bakrie, a Twitter user since 2010, has about 6 000. —© Financial Times, London