Glencore CEO Ivan Glasenberg’s dealmaking skills were clearly demonstrated during the Xstrata… er … “merger of equals”.
Not only did he get Xstrata without spending any actual cash (apart from the big payday for advisers and lawyers) he also snagged the top job of a new kind of mine to market behemoth.
It’s a business model now being furiously copied by Hong Kong’s Noble Group who’ve invested heavily in Mick Davis’ Xstrata 2 and Anglo-American which is setting up an internal trading arm. Dutch trading giant Trafigura is upping its investment in mines and Mercuria, created out of JP Morgan’s commodities business is making a big move into metals.
There is no shortage of possible takeover targets for Glencore with Anglo the name trotted out regularly.
But Glasenberg and Glencore with market value of $70 billion and an outperforming share price want bigger fish to fry.
A merger between Glencore and Rio Tinto would combine the world’s second and fourth largest miner and knock BHP Billiton off its throne. And the estimated $160 billion deal would add chunks to Glasenberg’s already gigantic bank account.
The Sydney Morning Herald quotes from a new interview with Bernstein’s London-based senior analyst Paul Gait, who revealed Glencore had made an approach a month before Rio publicly confirmed a meeting had taken place.
Gait puts forth the idea that Glasenberg “will waste little time” and his second attempt will come as soon as April – the earliest date allowed under British securities law:
“[The attempt] will involve an attack on Sam Walsh over dwindling hopes of substantial capital returns, as he tries to win the support of Rio’s biggest shareholder, Chinese giant Chinalco, by promising to sell key assets Oyu Tolgoi and Simandou.
“Is he coming back? In my view, yes,” Mr Gait said from London.
Mr Gait told The Australian Financial Review Glencore’s shock announcement that it would shut down its Australian coal operations for three weeks was a strong indication Mr Glasenberg would try again for Rio.
He said Mr Glasenberg would be able to point to Glencore’s willingness to pull tonnes out of an oversupplied market in a direct challenge to Rio over its expansion in iron ore.
“To me this coal announcement is clearly Ivan playing games,” Mr Gait said. “It had the language of someone trying to make his credentials on managing the market as a CEO. It’s a shot across the bows to Rio.”
Like the Xstrata takeover which started cozy enough but towards the end of the more than 18 month process had definitely veered into hostile territory, Glasenberg would initially pitch the deal as an all-share, zero premium “merger of equals” according to Gait. And Glasenberg “wouldn’t go higher than a 10% 20% premium”.
Chinalco owns nearly 10% of Rio and Gait believes Glasenberg could win over the state-owned aluminum giant by handing over Rio’s stakes in the greenfield Simandou iron ore project in Guinea, West Africa and the embattled Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold project in Mongolia.
Simandou is a $20 billion, 95 million tonne a year project which won’t come on stream for at least a decade while Oyu Tolgoi’s $6 billion move underground, where 80% of the resource lies, is stuck in political and development hell.
For a GlenTinto they would present years of management and spending headaches, but for a Chinese enterprise playing the long game with the full backing of a government, they would be prized assets.
Glasenberg orchestrated a similar deal to appease the Chinese during the Xstrata takeover offering to give up its flagship Las Bambas project to ally fears over market dominance.
Expansion by Rio and others is taking most of the blame for the nearly 50% fall in the price of iron ore – responsible for the bulk of Rio’s profits – this year.
Gait said Glasenberg’s strategy would focus on Walsh’s management of Rio’s iron ore business which started when Walsh was the head of that division:
A lot of this [merger attempt] is, in a lot of ways, an ad hominem attack on the management of Rio Tinto, designed essentially to transfer the assets.
“In an all-share deal, which is what this is going to be, all you’re really discussing is who you want to manage these assets. That’s it.”
Gait’s pronouncement follows that of Ian Hannam, the once and future king of mining M&A, who earlier this week told a group of 20 hedge funds representatives that a merger is all but inevitable:
“If not today, this deal will happen sometime in the near future.”
6 Comments
Honheree
As I pointed out in previous emails, China will take over Mongolia, economically through deals like this, and the Mongolian government have only themselves to blame for being so greedy and corrupt, that they have put Oyu Tolgoi is at a standstill, making it difficult for Rio Tinto to do anything else but agree to the above deal.
Mar
Some one is smoking wacky tabbacki here!! China has had a very long mutually beneficial relationship with Rio Tinto and as well, China is very sensitive as to how their government controlled corporations are perceived internationally. I would think that China also likes the current low ore prices. Any involvement in a war with Rio Tinto is quite simply not in their best interest politically or economicly. Glencore is known for making huge bets on commodities which makes one wander if they are not sitting on the wrong side of a bet on Iron Ore. JMO
Templetooth
Having watched the downward spiral of South Gobi Resources, which all started when Turquoise Hill tried to sell its controlling interest to a Chinese coal company, it became apparent that Mongolia holds China in the same esteem as, say, ebola. While Glencore might well end up with Rio in its clutches, the idea that as part of the deal Turquoise will end up in Chinese hands is absurd.
MINING.com Editors
@Templetooth All true about the bad blood between Mongolia and China. But SouthGobi happened in 2012, things have really gone pear shaped for Mongolia’s finances since then. The SouthGobi bid was also for outright control, China doesn’t need to be the majority shareholder in Oyu Tolgoi. Rio owns 51% of Turquoise Hill which owns 66% of Oyu Tolgoi which would give Chinalco a third. In July TRQ sold a 30% stake in SouthGobi to a (nominally private) Chinese company. — Frik
Icarus
Great article with balanced views. Very interested to watch this unfold saga unfold.
Mark
Good points and good discussion, it has been many years that China has had only little control over the bulk of their iron ore purchases – perhaps this will be a correction by securing their own offshore assets? BHPB should also be considered when discussing such major strategic movements, perhaps a Rio “poison pill” agreement may emerge? The possibility of surprise acquisition strategies from the old BHPB filing room may be dusted off?
Ivan, clearly will not pull anyone’s Billy goat by the beard unless he has it well tied up.