MIN is a bit cash strapped based on current pricing. Whether this remains the case going fwd will largely depend on Iron Ore and Li Spod. All of its Li operations are losing money right now (based on US770 6% spod price) though Iron Ore should be in the green now with spot price back to US108/tn. Even at that price, margin isn't great. Throw in a huge pile of debt to service, and that is one toxic combo. The mining services side will continue to mint money but it's now a question of whether they need to raise fresh capital to avoid potentially breaching some of their debt covenants. Even with the Onslow haul road sell down for 1.1bn, it has a net debt of around 3.3bn with another 2bn of capex spend in FY25 (quite a bit of that is for energy). So if they can sell the gas asset, not only will they receive the capital injection, it will also remove some of the capex requirement for FY25. Based on what has been announced by MIN and what has been published in the media, we know MIN has received an offer from Mitsui and has seemingly kicked off discussions with other parties. MIN would not be doing that if it has no intention of selling.
As CE said himself at the end of the results presentation, it is the sh*ttiest time to be the CEO of a resource company and it's all about survival until the next cycle. As such, I don't think MIN will be looking to buy anything or anyone for quite a while to come... at least until it can get its balance sheet under control. As of end of last FY, its debt to EBITDA was over 4x.
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