Oz Minerals faces another takeover offer
miningweekly.com
17th November 2022
By: Esmarie Iannucci
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor: Australasia
PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Copper miner Oz Minerals went into a trading halt on Thursday, with the company flagging a potential change of control transaction.
Oz Minerals in September rejected a surprise A$8.4-billion takeover bid from diversified miner BHP, which had offered to acquire all of the company’s shares at A$25 a share.
The takeover target told shareholders at the time that in coming to the decision to reject the offer from BHP, the board of directors felt that the indicative proposal did not adequately compensate shareholders for the unique nature of Oz Minerals’ core business, which represented a high-quality portfolio of copper and nickel assets in a Tier 1 mining jurisdiction with long mine lives, first quartile cost positioning and extensive strategic optionality.
The board also felt that the offer did not reflect the unique investment proposition which Oz Minerals provided as the only primary copper company in the ASX100, or the low carbon intensity of the company’s assets, relative to its peers, or the quality of the company’s growth projects, which includes the West Musgrave asset.
The company has subsequently taken a final investment decision on the A$1.7-billion West Musgrave copper/nickel project, which is expected to have a mine life of 24 years currently, producing an average of 35 000 t/y of nickel and 41 000 t/y of copper in the first five years of operations, and 27 000 t/y of nickel and 33 000 t/y of copper in the remaining mine life.  |
