JAKARTA/LONDON (Reuters)- It was supposed to be a union of two legendary business dynasties, one West, one East. Nathaniel Philip Rothshild, the 40-year-old scion of the storied European banking family, forged a deal a year ago with the Bakrie brothers, one of Indonesia's mightiest business families, to create an international coal-mining titan.
That deal last November seemed incredible from the start; the dream of creating the world's biggest thermal coal company, with mines in Indonesian Borneo, and aiming to be one of the biggest listed companies on the London exchange. Now a year later the partnership could be on the brink of collapse.