BHP Group CEO, Mike Henry.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nBHP\u2019s renewed interest reflects in Anglo pressures in an industry eager to add scale and growth, particularly in copper, where supply has been dwindling and demand is expected to rise as the world electrifies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The mining giant\u2019s overture comes just weeks before shareholders from Anglo and Teck \u2014 two long-standing, copper-rich targets \u2014 are scheduled to vote on their own deal to create a company worth more than $60 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
BHP shares rose as much as 1.3% in Sydney on Monday before paring most gains, as investors digested news of the attempt and its abandonment. The stock was up 0.1% just before the close.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The revelation that BHP had another crack at Anglo surprised some shareholders, particularly because CEO Mike Henry had spent the months since the last takeover attempt reaffirming the company\u2019s focus on its existing assets, said Dylan Kelly, head of research at Terra Capital, which holds BHP stock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere are lots of questions surrounding what this means for their new strategy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Copper miners with quality, long-life assets, are scarce and while several have operational issues, they are still deemed by investors to hold value for growth in the future. This has made them expensive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The second attempt by BHP in as many years to buy Anglo underscores just how hard it is to do M&A for copper in the current environment, said Jamie Hannah, the Sydney-based deputy head of investments and capital markets at Van Eck Associates Corp., which holds shares in BHP. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think this approach was a failure,\u201d he said. \u201cMike Henry is just trying to do difficult deals in a difficult market. It was always going to be hard.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
BHP\u2019s earlier, 2024 proposal had required Anglo to partly break itself up. The latest plan was structured in a simpler way, the people said, and Anglo has since exited its South African platinum business \u2014 potentially making it more digestible to BHP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still, since BHP\u2019s last dalliance with Anglo ended, its shares have fallen in Australian trading, while the smaller company\u2019s shares have risen 11% in London. The deal with Teck has also received broad-based support from Anglo investors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMaybe BHP thought there was still an opportunity to squeeze in,\u201d said Glyn Lawcock, head of metals and mining at Barrenjoey Markets Pty Ltd. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He added that BHP now had to focus on its big-ticket copper investments, including at its giant Escondida mine in Chile, at the Vicuna venture in Argentina and at operations in South Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
BHP said in its statement on Monday that it continued to believe that a combination with Anglo \u201cwould have had strong strategic merits and created significant value for all shareholders.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, the company added, it was \u201cconfident in the highly compelling potential of its own organic growth strategy.\u201d It did not provide details of any specifics put to the target\u2019s board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lazard Inc., UBS Group AG and Barclays Plc acted as advisers to BHP on their latest approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anglo declined to comment. Teck and Anglo shareholders are set to vote on 9 December, and the deal still needs the approval of regulators in countries including China, the US and Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By Bloomberg, additional reporting by BusinessTech<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BHP has walked away from a deal to acquire Anglo American for the second time in as many years. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":769580,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[2318,19848],"class_list":["post-844307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-anglo-american","tag-bhp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=844307"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":844331,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844307\/revisions\/844331"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/769580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=844307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=844307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=844307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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