Takeover target

from todays SMH

Lacaze prepares Lynas for more bids while Scott waits
By Kylar Loussikian and Samantha Hutchinson
April 24, 2019 — 12.00am

Like 450,000 tonnes of radioactive waste situated just metres from the South China Sea, the Lynas-Wesfarmers takeover tussle isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
Wesfarmers’ $1.5 billion bid was made public on March 26, more than a month after the conglomerate’s managing director Rob Scott and Lynas chief executive Amanda Lacaze had held discussions about the possibility of a takeover.
Lynas chief executive Amanda Lacaze and Wesfarmers managing director Rob Scott. Illustration: Joe BenkeCREDIT:
When those talks fell apart Lynas decided there was “no reason to believe that Wesfarmers had an ongoing interest in the company”, allowing four of its directors to purchase shares in the rare earths mining company.
But now that she’s formally rejected Wesfarmers, is Lacaze now expecting another bid?

We think that’s exactly what she is preparing for. We’re told Lacaze has talked with Lynas' lawyers, King & Wood Mallesons, about taking any future bid to the Takeovers Panel on the basis that Wesfarmers breached confidentiality provisions in earlier talks.
Here we were thinking our conversations with Lynas’ spinner Jennifer Parker, over at Cannings Strategic Communications, were being copied in to her friends at KWM because our questions were so clever she needed to share them with her legal offsiders.

Taking another (potential) Wesfarmers approach to the Takeovers Panel would buy time for Lacaze to come up with a white knight strategic investor, most likely the Japanese conglomerate Sojitz, a major customer who with the Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation provided a $US250 million loan to the company in 2011.
Where that would leave other customers — perhaps worried about favourable treatment for a major rare earth miners rival turned significant Lynas shareholder?
Then there’s the next move for Scott and Wesfarmers.
The rumour is Wesfarmers’ bankers at UBS once considered the possibility of tying Lynas up with the $3.9 billion mineral sands outfit Iluka Resources.
If that were to happen, Scott would likely find himself face-to-face with an old Wesfarmers face, Iluka chief Tom O’Leary, the former head of the conglomerate’s chemicals and energy division.