Oz Minerals seen offloading Martabe for $200m TOP News
Oz Minerals Ltd is expected to announce the sale of its Martabe gold deposit in Indonesia as early as today for around $200 million, according to media reports.
China's Minmetals is currently offering $2.6 billion for Oz Minerals, with an extra $1.1 billion needed to pay down the company's debt.
It's widely expected that if the Martabe sale goes through, Minmetals will increase the takeover offer to reflect the company's reduced debt levels.
Crikey reports that the mine will go to a syndicate led by former founder and managing director Owen Hegarty.
According to The Australian Financial Review, Oz Minerals will follow the Martabe sale by offloading its Golden Grove polymetallic mine in Western Australia.
The world's second largest zinc producer is relying on the deal with Minmetals to solve its financial problems, with lenders threatening to push the company into receivership if its issue goes unresolved.
The cash offer of 82.5 cents a share represented a 50 per cent premium to Oz's last traded price at the time of the offer and won swift approval from the company's board.
Minmetals, a subsidiary of China Minmetals Corporation, supplies Chinese-made steel products into the Australian market, trades metallurgical raw material, and invests in Australia.
OZ Minerals said its shareholders stood to benefit from the certainty of an all-cash offer in a volatile market, and the offer provided financiers, staff, suppliers and the communities in which the company operated, with certainty.
The deal is one part of a recent flurry of activity between Chinese state-owned companies and Australian miners, with Rio Tinto Ltd battling to win approval from a $US19.5 billion ($A30 billion) deal with Chinalco and iron ore miner Fortescue Metals Group Ltd holding talks with numerous Chinese firms.
OZL Price at posting:
65.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
