BHP drops takeover bid for Anglo American

Australian mining giant BHP has decided to abandon its efforts to acquire Anglo American, a London-headquartered rival miner, after a new takeover proposal it made last week was rejected, according to market sources.

BHP confirmed on November 24 that after preliminary discussions with the Board of Anglo American, "it is no longer considering a combination of the two companies" and will focus more on its own portfolio.

As the world's largest listed miner, BHP is confident in the potential of its growth strategy, though it still believes that "a combination with Anglo American would have had strong strategic merits and created significant value for all stakeholders," per the miner's statement.

To strengthen its dominance in copper, BHP had been eyeing Anglo's large copper assets to further build up its copper business, given that it is short of significant new projects in the years ahead. However, the three attempts the Australian mining giant made last year to buy Anglo American all failed, with the final offer topping $49 billion, as Mysteel Global reported.

No specific sum of BHP's latest bid for Anglo has been disclosed, but it is said to consist largely of shares and a small cash component.

Notably, BHP's walk away from this takeover attempt came just weeks before shareholders of Anglo American and Canadian miner Teck Resources are set to vote on their merger on December 9. The two companies reached a $53 million merger deal two months ago to create a copper-mining giant, Anglo Teck, as reported.

Written by Irene Zhuang, zhuangailing@mysteel.com

Edited by Alyssa Ren, rentingting@mysteel.com