What is interesting is that each company are valuing AGO using different metrics so what is reasonable for one company at 6c, might still be cheap for another company at 10c. It really is a game of poker no doubt.
FMG for example have stated their strategic stake was also to ward off MIN from over supplying the market using AGO's 1.2B tonnes. If 43M tonnes were supplied into the market per year, I had read that FMG believed this could decrease the iron ore price by $2 per tonne.
Therefore, by not taking over AGO, their profit may be hit by 170m x $2 = $340M per year.
So in FMG's eyes, 10c or $920M may still be cheap for them as it would preserve their profit (less than PE of 3 based on preservation of profit), then they would have access to additional port capacity, have substantially more iron ore tenements at minimum 1.2b tonnes ready to go, diversify into lithium (DSO, royalties, Mt Francisco and Pancho) and have some tax losses it could utilise all for nothing.
Therefore it will be hard to come up with a one size fits all valuation.
Cheers
AGO Price at posting:
4.5¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
