Glencore Raises Offer for Rio Tinto's Australian Coal Assets -- Update
June 23 2017 - 10:17AM
Dow Jones News
By Tapan Panchal
LONDON-- Glencore PLC said Friday it has submitted a sweetened
all-cash offer of $2.68 billion for Rio Tinto PLC's Australian coal
assets, days after its previous attempt to scotch an acquisition
from a Chinese suitor was rejected.
The Anglo-Swiss mining-and-commodities trading giant said its
bid for Coal & Allied Industries Ltd., which includes a coal
price-linked royalty, is fully funded and is at least $225 million
greater than an offer made by Yancoal Australia Ltd., a subsidiary
of China's Yanzhou Coal Mining Co.
Anglo-Australian mining company Rio Tinto on Tuesday rebuffed a
$2.5 billion offer Glencore made earlier this month, and
recommended that shareholders approve Yancoal's $2.45 billion bid,
in part because it expects to complete the deal faster than one
with Glencore.
Glencore also offered Rio Tinto a $225 million deposit to be
forfeited if the transaction were unable to obtain regulatory
approval.
Friday's raised offer from Glencore further demonstrates the
renewed appetite for deal-making by Chief Executive Ivan Glasenberg
almost two years after the Switzerland-based commodity giant
experienced a downward spiral in share price.
Since the company's stock recovered, Mr. Glasenberg has
engineered the purchase of a stake in Russian state oil company PAO
Rosneft, taken full control of a Congolese mine and made an offer
to take over agricultural trader Bunge Ltd.
Mr. Glasenberg has long coveted Rio Tinto's coal assets because
they sit near some of Glencore's Australian coal operations,
offering opportunities for cost savings were they to merge.
"The probability of Glencore gaining these assets has increased
in our view," RBC Capital Markets said in a note on Friday.
Rio Tinto is trying to shed much of its coal operations,
especially thermal coal, the type burned to make electricity.
The price of thermal coal shot up in 2016 as demand from China
heated up. The market has cooled this year, and analysts expect
prices to remain subdued as countries switch to cleaner-burning
fuels.
Glencore, the world's biggest trader of thermal coal, expects
demand for the fossil fuel to remain solid, since it is one of the
cheapest fuels for electricity generation.
Shares of Glencore were down 0.4% in Friday afternoon trading,
while Rio shares were up 1.2%.
Write to Tapan Panchal at Tapan.Panchal@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 23, 2017 11:02 ET (15:02 GMT)
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