I still think with Oz having a large stake in BDR they must be looking to either off load it to fund a takeover or be running the book over BDR.
Cheers
Hot legs
Oz Minerals eyes at least 4 Targets for takeover Simon Evans AFR
OZ Minerals chief executive Andrew Cole says the copper and gold company has four potential acquisitions it is doing due diligence on but will only proceed if the price tags are at a level that deliver good value.
Mr Cole says while geographic diversification may be an outcome if OZ does make an acquisition it is not necessarily a driver of the company's acquisition strategy.
OZ operates just one mine, the Prominent Hill copper and gold mine in South Australia, which employs 1200 workers. He made the comments at the OZ annual meeting in Adelaide, where the company is in the process of shifting its head office to from its previous base of Melbourne.
Mr Cole also declined to comment on the likely acquisition targets for OZ, but said the company had four potential acquisitions that it was putting through its due diligence process. Mr Cole said it was a very systematic process, where the best prospect was at the top of the list and if another came onto the radar then the bottom one of the four potentials was put on the back burner.
Mr Cole also said that while the company had already earmarked $44 million in cost savings to come out through its restructuring there was still more savings that would be pursued. "We have a long pipeline," he said.
Mr Hamilton said he didn't believe there would be a big acceleration in mergers and acquisitions across the mining industry, and that despite all the hand-wringing in bulk commodity areas like iron ore, which has been buffeted by sharply falling prices, it would be continued cost-cutting rather than takeovers that would be a feature in that segment.
"I think that when it comes to the bulks (iron ore) there's not going to be much action," he said.
OZ was concentrating on producing the highest quality copper possible from Prominent Hill to guard against any further downturn in prices. "That's your best line of defence," he said.
Meanwhile, ASX-listed Rex Minerals revealed on Monday that the upfront capital cost of its planned Hillside copper mine near Ardrossan on South Australia's Yorker Peninsula would be $480 million in a scaled back version. A year ago Rex was pursuing an $850 million project at Hillside.
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