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Thursday, September 1, 2011

Anglo American could lose out on Macarthur Coal

Thursday, 01 Sep 2011

The Telegraph reported that Anglo American is poised to lose out in the AUD 4.9 billion takeover tussle for Macarthur Coal after the Australian company recommended a sweetened offer from a consortium of US based Peabody Energy and European steelmaker ArcelorMittal.

Anglo American had gained access to the Australian group's data room and had been weighing up whether to make a formal offer for Macarthur, which mines low cost coal.

However, Macarthur has recommend an increased AUD 16 a share offer from the Peabody ArcelorMittal combine after the pair lifted the offer price from AUD 15.50. Macarthur shareholders are also entitled to a recently declared dividend, making the total offer AUD 16.16 a share. Macarthur shares rose 0.06 cents to AUD 15.86.

ArcelorMittal already owns 16.1% of Macarthur's shares and the offer from the PEAMCoal bid vehicle is conditional on securing 50.01% acceptances from the coal mining company's shareholders. The acceptances threshold was put in place to get around China's Citic Resources, which has a 24.5% stake in Macarthur and could move to block a full scale takeover.

In 2010, the Chinese group made it clear it would not endorse a change of control when Peabody, which was then acting alone, made a failed an AUD 15 a share bid for Macarthur. Some analysts reckon the protracted takeover battle for Macarthur is over. This is because it has already agreed an AUD 48.3 million break fee, and also no shop and no talk provisions that restrict any future negotiations with rival bidders.

PEAMCoal also has the right to provide a matching offer in the event of any competing proposal that Macarthur's board considers superior.

Mr Jamie Spiteri, head dealer at Shaw Stockbroking in Sydney, told Bloomberg that "There's probably not a lot more that can be extracted for Macarthur shareholders unless there's a challenge from another party."

Mr Andrew Harrington, an analyst with Patersons Securities, said that "It's a fair value price. Any counter bid is becoming increasingly difficult."

In its statement to the Australian stock exchange, Macarthur said a number of parties have conducted due diligence.

The Macarthur deal comes amid a revival of takeovers of mining companies following a sell off of natural resource company share prices. They include last week's AUD 268 million bid by Glencore International for Minara Resources.

sourced Telegraph


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