We are talking here about Glenstrata, of course, going ex-Mick Davis and cum-Ivan Glasenberg as soon as the last bits of competition authority clearance arrive…
Ivan has already sent industry tongues a-wag with some off-the-grid comments at a BMO Capital Markets conference in Florida, as reported by Reuters:
What we’ve got to do, when the markets do get stronger, no need to keep building a new asset and let’s keep the market tight for a while…
Anglo American has parted ways with Cynthia Carroll and the mining group does not know who’s going to replace her. The share price popped 3.2 per cent on the news – a rare Footsie gainer on Friday morning at pixel time.
Cynthia Carroll, the chief executive of Anglo American, has resigned from her post at the strike-hit mining company after almost six years in the job.
The group said Ms Carroll, the first non-South African and first female chief executive of the mining conglomerate when she was appointed in 2007, would continue as chief executive until a successor had been appointed and “an appropriate transition has taken place”.
Here’s the key bit from Monday’s confirmation that Xstrata’s independent directors are once again recommending merger terms from Glencore…
1. To approve the New Scheme subject to the resolution to approve the Revised Management Incentive Arrangements to be put to the Further Xstrata General Meeting being passed. The Independent Xstrata Non-Executive Directors intend to recommend unanimously that eligible Xstrata Shareholders vote in favour of only this resolution at the New Court Meeting; and Read more
Final terms from Glencore in its hostile bid for Xstrata include this weird proposal:
In order to provide clarity on the issue of CEO succession, Mick Davis will become the Chief Executive Officer and executive director of the Combined Group on the Merger becoming effective but to step down within 6 months with Ivan Glasenberg becoming Chief Executive Officer of the Combined Group at that time. Read more
Fierce statement out of Xstrata on Friday afternoon…
The Independent Directors of Xstrata plc have today written to Glencore International plc to request clarification of the outline proposal (the “Proposal”) provided to the Xstrata Board immediately prior to the Xstrata Court Meeting and New Xstrata General Meeting today in Switzerland. Read more
Xstrata’s chief executive Mick Davis is on the warpath. On Thursday he captured headlines with his threat to scrap $5.4bn in coal and copper projects in Australia, blaming Canberra’s plan to slap a 40 per cent “super profits tax” on mining companies. But the tax has some supporters, as well. See FT Alphaville for an overview. Read more
And so to the Melbourne Mining Club on Monday evening, where Xstrata’s Mick Davis was telling us how he was once the youngest cricketing umpire in South Africa, explaining along the way the “intellectual purity” of a nil premium merger of equals, as he would like to consummate with the unwilling Cynthia Carroll at Anglo American.
Nervous Takeover Panel-types can listen to an audio clip of the Davis address here. Read more
And so the bear hug begins.
17 June 2009 Read more
Sunday’s press release.
Zug, 21 June 2009 Read more
Xstrata telling the market what it already knows. Noting “media speculation”, not least here, and here in these very pixels, followed by more detail in the pink pages, Mick Davis, chief executive, on Wednesday hung out the ‘for sale’ sign with a statement to the London market.
Xstrata confirms that its ongoing interaction with other industry participants includes dialogue with a number of parties covering a range of topics of mutual interest such as industry consolidation. Read more
Unaccustomed as he is to selling businesses, Xstrata chief executive Mick Davis has taken the plunge. Of course, the sale for $1.15bn of all of Xstrata’s aluminium interest to private equity group Apollo Management, is actually the result of the last whopping deal the miner did – the $18.8bn acquisition of Falconbridge in 2006. So net-net deal-hungry Mr Davis is probably still feeling pretty comfortable.
The sale of the aluminium assets – flagged as non-core and likely to be sold at the time of the Falconbridge deal – has come in as expected at between $1bn to $1.3bn. The buyer, Apollo, is the US private equity group run by Leon Black, thought be some to be edging closer to an IPO. Read more
Xstrata, the acquisitive mining group, clocked up yet another deal on Monday: it has agreed to pay C$4.6bn (£2bn) in cash for Lionore, a Canadian nickel specialist that will fit neatly into Falconbridge, the Canadian copper and nickel group which Xstrata bought last summer for £8.5bn.
Rumours of Xstrata’s interest in Lionore first surfaced two weeks ago, but talk of a deal then was scotched by news that Xstrata’s chief executive, Mick Davis, and fellow directors had together sold £27m in Xstrata stock. Read more
Xstrata on Tuesday predicted that 2007 would be another good year for the mining sector, with most commodity prices staying high, and insisted that it was ready to make more acquisitions after last year’s $18.8bn takeover of Falconbridge of Canada. Mick Davis, Xstrata chief executive, said: “The integration of Falconbridge is done and dusted. The team is ready to move on.” He said that he was still interested in getting into the iron ore, platinum, and bauxite/alumina markets, but that Xstrata had not yet found a deal that it would be comfortable with. Fortune favours the bold, they say, and Mr Davis is among the boldest, says Lombard. Confidence about the robustness of the commodity cycle is the one area where Mr Davis and some of the investment community diverge. Some worry about “lack of visibility” on base metal prices but Mr Davis and his team are more concerned about missing opportunities if they are too conservative about the cycle. Even bulls of Xstrata must wonder whether now is really the moment for Mr Davis to break into another acquisitive sprint. Read more
