BHP unlikely to bid for Anglo before Amplats demerger

A BID for Anglo American, if one is coming from BHP as speculated this week, was only likely after the UK-listed firm had unbundled its platinum company, Amplats, according to a report by Swiss bank UBS.“In our opinion, a renewed approach by BHP is unlikely before the spin out of Amplats as this materially reduced the complexity of the transaction and the “structure” issues flagged by the Anglo board,” UBS said in an investment report on Friday.According to the Financial Times, Mike Henry CEO of BHP, met government officials in South Africa last week with a view to resurrecting its failed £39bn bid for Anglo once the standstill agreement on a second pass expires on November 29. Henry and BHP’s chief development officer, Catherine Raw, met South Africa government officials and the Public Investment Corporation, the state-owned asset manager, the paper said.In its report, UBS said that once Anglo had restructured, it would have to re-rate “materially” making it too expensive to buy or “it is likely to be purchased”. Based on BHP’s final bid in May, an implied value of £27.5 per share has been imputed to Anglo, down from £31/share at the time of the last offer, the bank said.Asked about another bid for the company, Anglo CEO Duncan Wanblad said at the Joburg Indaba conference earlier this month: “I don’t believe that is inevitable. We will only be 60% copper and we will have very good growth optionality.“To the extent that we are fully valued in the context of the sum of our parts we will be a very viable, stand alone company.“I cannot say what other people are going to do from a corporate action point of view and I don’t really care about it. What I care about is delivering on the strategy to create value for my own shareholders but, more importantly, all of the stakeholders,” he said.During BHP’s takeover offer, Anglo proposed the unbundling of Amplats, as well as the sale of its metallurgical coal mines in Australia, its nickel assets, and the sale or unbundling of De Beers, the diamond mining and marketing firm.UBS said Anglo’s unbundling appeared to be progressing with the sale of the metallurgical coal mines due by year-end. Glencore, Australian miners Stanmore, New Hope Group and Yancoal, and Adani Group, an Indian coal miner were in a second round of bidding for the assets, according to reports.The full demerger of Amplats was likely in the second quarter of next year with the prospectus set to be issued after the firm’s full-year results presentation in February, said UBS. Before that, another private placement of shares – probably about 5% – was possible. Anglo sold R7.2bn worth of Amplats shares in a bookbuild in September.Asked to comment on the likelihood of selling another tranche of Amplats shares, Wanblad was evasive: “It’s not absolutely certain that we could do it or will do it”.“We see potential for a second bookbuild of about a 5% stake in Amplats from December 9 (after the 90 day lock-up following the first tranche),” said UBS.The post BHP unlikely to bid for Anglo before Amplats demerger appeared first on Miningmx.Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Mining.com Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Mining.com