Azure also only held 60% of the shares for the $1,7B takeover...

Azure also only held 60% of the shares for the $1,7B takeover bid so the company value is closer to $2.38B

below exert from Dec 2023

Gina Rinehart has landed her first big partnership in lithium by joining forces with Chilean giant Sociedad Quimica y Minera to launch a knockout $1.7 billion bid for explorer Azure Minerals.

Mrs Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting and SQM have locked up more than 60 per cent of the stock after their improved 50-50 bid, pitched at $3.70 a share up from $3.52, won the support of at least two other major shareholders: billionaire prospector Mark Creasy and Delphi Group.

Chris Ellison’s Mineral Resources can opt to sell into the Rinehart-SQM takeover, or resist giving up what is currently a 13.5 per cent stake. Mr Ellison said in November that he wanted a big piece of Azure’s Andover project; MinRes declined to reveal its intentions on Tuesday.

Gina Rinehart has joined forces with SQM in a $1.7 billion takeover bid for Azure Minerals. Getty

The Hancock-SQM scheme of arrangement is contingent on no other player acquiring or increasing its holding in Azure to more than 15 per cent.

Mrs Rinehart’s team and SQM thrashed out the pact that delivers on part of her ambitions to become a major lithium player in her home state of Western Australia. The Andover project lies in the mineral-rich Pilbara region that is home to

Mrs Rinehart’s iron ore empire. Hancock chief executive Garry Korte said the private company was looking at a number of other early-stage lithium projects on top of its “powerful partnership” with SQM and compelling offer for Azure.