Reading in todays smh that oxiana might be a t/o target. Then Hegarty might concentrate solely on Range River.
====
Oxiana target for big guns
Barry FitzGerald July 21, 2006
OXIANA boss Owen Hegarty has raised the prospect of the $4.5 billion miner becoming the subject of a takeover bid from one of the five industry heavyweights now slugging it out in the $50 billion North American mining merger frenzy.
The five "elephants", as Mr Hegarty described them, are Xstrata, Falconbridge, Teck Cominco, Inco and Phelps Dodge.
Xstrata - last year's losing bidder to BHP Billiton for WMC Resources - has the upper hand to take Falconbridge, Phelps is ahead in the race for Inco, and Teck is on the sidelines with its rival Inco offer.
Mr Hegarty said Oxiana was "not in any conversations with anybody about being acquired".
But he believes continued consolidation of the global industry is unstoppable as the big companies use their burgeoning cash flows to lock in growth by acquiring other companies.
"One of the reasons that the elephants are fighting over there in North America at the moment - that five-way tussle that's going on over there - is because they are looking for other people's assets, for other people's resources, because they have limited organic growth opportunities," Mr Hegarty said.
"It is not going to stop at that because there is probably going to be two, three or four of them that are going to be disappointed about all of that … they will continue to look around for valuable assets. So we will no doubt be well and truly on the radar there, but there is nothing going on at the moment … that we know of."
Oxiana has added to its potential appeal by securing a breakthrough deal with China's Minmetals to jointly pursue and develop various mineral properties in China and other countries.
The joint venture will look at grassroots exploration projects through to the acquisition of existing operations.
The Chinese group has also shown in the past that it is prepared to make takeovers.
Mr Hegarty was speaking on the release of the group's production and exploration report for the June quarter.
"Overall it was a very rock-solid quarter from the Ox here in terms of production and major advances on the development and exploration side," he said.
The group's shares closed 17c, or 5.47 per cent, higher at $3.28.
That gain reflected broad solid support for diversified miners rather than any particular joy at the Oxiana report.
BHP Billiton rose $1.57 to $28.80 and Rio Tinto $3.26 to $75.71.
