News: ILU Australia's biggest mining royalty firm Deterra debuts with $1.83 bln market value, page-5

Interesting.
I didn't really consider this angle but your post led me to do some thinking.
We know that ILU has had a history of CEOs coming directly from Wesfarmers. We also know that Wesfarmers had a failed tilt at Lynas not too long ago. Iluka merger could be something that they have ability to work on in a somewhat educated manner given the cross relations. Im obviously purely speculating here.
The real question is, why now? Why not any other time over the last 2 years? ILU ex DRR is a smaller bite to digest, but WES has the firepower and capital markets prowess that it could have seperated and sold off the royalty biz if it really wanted the rare earths side.
Id say a takeover cannot be ruled out, now moreso than ever given the flurry of activity we have seen market wide... however without anything more substantive I wont be hanging my hat on it.