now 4.30 on market, page-6

THE NEVER ENDING STORY
ConsMin's somersault – Palmary recommendation dropped to re-embrace Pallinghurst
Just when the curtain appeared to be closing on the takeover of Western Australian manganese, chromite and nickel miner ConsMin the company received a new all-cash, off market bid from Pallinghurst. Today ConsMin announced it would withdraw its earlier recommendation from Palmary.

Author: Ross Louthean
Posted: Thursday , 06 Sep 2007

PERTH -

The saga of the takeover bid for Consolidated Minerals took another turn today after rejected bidder Pallinghurst which is driven by Brian Gilbertson decided to increase its cash bid to $A4.10 per share, a long way north of the company's original bid of $2.30/share.

ConsMin's managing director Rod Baxter said that the company now withdraws its recommendation for an all-cash off-market takeover offer from Palmary, an associate of Privatbank, which in turn controls manganese mining and processing operations in the Ukraine, which it recommended a few days ago as it was seen as being the highest bid.

Baxter said: Pallinghurst has also undertaken to further vary its revised offer to provide ConsMin shareholders with "a potential top-up payment" with Pallinghurst making an additional cash payment to shareholders who accepted the revised Pallinghurst offer, so as to oblige Pallinghurst to "match" the offer price under any subsequent higher-off-market takeover offer made by another bidder.

ConsMin (ASX: CSM, AIM: CNM, FSE: CMN) also recommended shareholders take no action in relation to the bid by Territory Resources Ltd of $A2 cash plus 1.5 ordinary Territory shares for ever ConsMin share.

The company said Pallinghurst's revised offer represents a 13.9% increase on Pallinghurst's previous offer being $A3.60/share; a 3.8% premium on the Palmary offer and a 21.7% premium on the value of the Territory offer. Some market analysts feel this latest offer may not be enough to bring an end to this bid saga.