T

he Indonesia Stock Market (IDX) suspended trading in the shares of PT Ancora Indonesia Resources for the second time this month on Tuesday on news the firm may acquire coal mining companies.

IDX director for surveillance Justitia Purwasani said the stock market authority was waiting for confirmation from the company in relation to its acquisition plans, which had contributed to significant increases in its share prices during the past three weeks.

"We had yet to receive any confirmation from the company," she said.

The share price of Ancora rocketed during the past three weeks, rising by more than 210 percent, forcing the IDX to suspend Ancora shares last week for one day to give the market a cooling down period.

Market speculation at that time was that the company was planning to pay out hefty dividends, but Justitia's remarks confirm that the price increase was probably more because of the company's expansion plans and possible acquisitions.

Justitia said that IDX would lift the second suspension after it received an explanation from Ancora management about the acquisition plans. Ancora vice president Teddy K. Somantri said in a phone interview that its management would meet IDX soon to give the required full explanation to the stock market authority so that the suspension could be lifted as soon as possible.

"We don't know what has actually happened, we will discuss this matter tomorrow *Wednesday* with them " Teddy said.

However, he confirmed that the planned acquisitions were still on track with an appraisal team scheduled to announce the value of the proposed deals in May.

He said that company was still interested in acquiring up to five coal companies with total reserves of 24 million tons in South Kalimantan and West Kalimantan.

Teddy refused to mention detailed figures on the total value of the proposed acquisitions, but Gita Wirjawan, who was the founder of Ancora Capital, the parent company of Ancora, had already hinted that the company might allocate up to US$100 million for the acquisitions.

IDX director for listings Eddy Sugito said last week that the stock market authority said a trading suspension did not always mean that something had gone wrong, saying the IDX was also well aware of the market's current bullish trend which could also help account for the big jump in share prices.

Since the 2008 market collapse, the IDX index has recovered substantially, rising 46 percent from its October low point. Since April 1 the index has risen by 9 percent.