Conflict arose in the board of Bumi, the Indonesian coal miner with the investor Nathan Rothschild as a large investor after a reverse takeover of the Vallar investment vehicle. After initial conflicts the Indonesian board members planned to remove mr. Rothschild from the board, but he now only appears to have to give up his co-chairmanship. Share price of the company dropped significantly after the news of the conflict.
(Higher prices + higher costs) x lower volumes = lower profits. That was the story of the results releases of the world’s largest miners this week. The impairment taken by Rio Tinto on the Alcan acquisition costs probably was the most significant item, together with the relatively positive outlook given after the negative and uncertain signals given about global demand in the past months.
BHP (58%) and Rio (30%) expand Escondida at $4.5bln cost
BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto announced investments of $4.5bln to replace the plant at Escondida, the world’s largest copper mine in output, increasing capacity and enabling mining restricted by the current facilities.
February is the month in which most of the world’s largest diversified miners present their annual results (only BHP Billiton runs a different fiscal year). The investor presentations provide interesting reading and give a good idea of the vision for the future of the industry. Below a peak preview with the most insightful slides from the presentations:
Anglo American – Price benefit achieved mainly in first half of year
Rio Tinto – 2011 in Summary: high prices are the only good news
BHP Billiton – Cost pressure is high, but not structural
Rio Tinto – Borrowing to pay out next to all investments
Anglo American – restarting the diversification discussion
Xstrata – Supply constraints lead to the Glencore merger
Vale announced its plans to appeal to the governments intent to charge $5.6bln worth of taxes on foreign earnings. The clash with the government promises to be the first real test for the new CEO Murilo Ferreira.
Mr. Ferreira took over the leadership of the company from Roger Agnelli, who was not reelected partly based on a disagreement with the government (which is control Vale via state-controlled shareholders) over $2bln taxation.
Rio Tinto increased its ownership of Ivanhoe from 49% to 51%, giving it full control over the flagship Oyu Tolgoi copper project in Mongolia, the world’s premier copper development project.
Vale estimates the impact of a review of the tax code on the company’s earnings to be approx. 4-5% of earnings. Taxation regimes around the world for specifically iron ore and copper mining are reviewed to make the countries benefit more from ‘extreme’ profits, which could be seen as a temporary phenomenon. However, the key issue in Vale is facing now is a debate about double taxation; paying taxes over profits after taxes realized in countries where the company is operating.
Rio Tinto’s control over Ivanhoe will help the company to put in place its management structure and have the project managed by some of its top project developers. Gaining full control of the project in this stage will help Rio Tinto to build the project according to the company’s standards, preventing costly and above all time-consuming future transitions in the operating structure. The global standards that enable effective project management more and more set the world’s largest miners apart from the ‘small’ mining firms with only a few operating assets. Very much like GE has become known as a great ‘project management company’, the world’s largest miners are more and more developing into ‘mine development’ companies in which development speed is the key success factor and navigating politics in developing countries is a key skill.
BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto deliver record production in Pilbara
This was another record-breaking year in the Pilbara with both quarterly and full year iron ore production. Record global iron ore shipments of 239 million tonnes in 2011 were below production due to extreme weather conditions experienced in the first half of the year. Despite this, Rio Tinto’s Pilbara ports operated at above annualised capacity rates and shipped record volumes of 61 million tonnes in the fourth quarter and 225 million tonnes for the full year.
While scheduled maintenance, tie-in activities and the wet season in the Pilbara are expected to affect Western Australia Iron Ore production in the second half of the 2012 financial year, full year production is now forecast to marginally exceed prior guidance of 159 million tonnes per annum.
Vale proposed a minimum dividend of $6bln for the year, an increase of over 50% versus the previous year’s minimum payment and in line with the actual dividend payment over 2011.
Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton continue to build capacity in the Pibara iron ore district. With relatively low mining costs and close proximity to the Asian/Chinese market this iron ore region is the most competitive (and largest) producer in the world. As the output in Pilbara is exceeding expectations and Chinese growth is slowing, exporters in other regions face an uncertain future. The global iron ore market is slowly evolving to a scenario where Brazil and Western Africa supply ore for the European market and the Latin American growth market, and Australia supplies iron ore for Asia.
Vale’s increase of dividends fits in the trend of recent dividend increases in the industry and is a clear sign of uncertainty in the boardrooms of many companies: organic investment opportunities and development capacity are limited, share buybacks and cash takeovers would increase leverage and vulnerability, and with the uncertainty about future economic developments many companies decide to give the cash to shareholders in an attempt to keep share price high.
After 5 years as CFO of the world’s largest miner Alex Vanselow (Brazilian national) announced he will step down and look for a CEO position in the industry. Mr. Vanselow managed to get BHP through the economic downturn in great financial shape (helped by high commodity prices). His recent experience in acquisitions of Chesapeake assets and Petrohawk and the failed acquisitions of Rio Tinto, Potashcorp, and the failed Pilbara JV with Rio Tinto, make him an interesting candidate for any resources company looking to grow by M&A.
In a legal fight over the rights to the Anglo American Sur project Anglo’s lawyers blame Codelco and the Chilean government to act unfairly. Codelco holds an option to buy 49% of the project, but it is unclear whether that is only of Anglo’s stake or of the total project.
BHP Billiton announced it will review its options around its only diamond project: Ekati diamond mine in arctic Canada. Rio Tinto, which owns the nearby Diavik diamond mine, is the most likely buyer because of the synergistic potential and the lack of funds and abundance of capital spending needs of other large diamond miners.
Mr. Vanselow will be an interesting candidate for global companies looking for a change of CEO. As Brazil’s Vale recently changed CEO and Petrobras’ Gabrielli de Azevedo is widely recognized as a strong CEO with work to do he will most likely look to head up a foreign player. The ideal period for a CEO is typically seen as 6-8 years: after that a new point of view and a new alignment with the personality needed for the phase of a company is often helpful. Taking a look at the top positions of the world’s largest miners at this moment, several CEO position changes can be expected over the coming years.
Australia’s Mineral Resource Rent Tax approved by lower house
The new 30% tax on profits above A$75mln for coal and iron ore projects has been approved by the lower house and is now only to be approved by the senate. The tax has been debated for approx. 2 years. Initially proposed by Kevin Rudd, the former premier, the regime has been tuned down and now includes arrangements to stimulate and protect investments.
Tito Martins, Vale’s head of base metals, has been appointed as the new CFO of the company. Several executive management positions changed in the first major move of the new CEO to strengthen control. Mr. Martins was involved in the acquisition of Inco, which turned into Vale’s base metals division which was led by Mr. Ferreira.
The change of top management of Vale was started by appointing Murilo Ferreira CEO in the place of Roger Agnelli after the presidential elections in Brazil. One of the reasons of conflict between government and Vale was the building of a fleet of iron ore carriers in Asia rather than domestically. This fleet was in the news this week as Chinese ports are refusing to host them, trying to protect the interest of incumbent shipping lines.
Rio Tinto convinced the board of Hathor Exploration, a Canadian uranium explorer, with a C$654mln bid. The bid is approx. 5% higher than rival Cameco’s bid. Hathor owns rights to various uranium deposits in the Athabasca basin.
The changes at Vale should prepare the company for further changes to the business environment for the major iron ore producers. The introduction of the MRRT mainly hits Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton, but all three majors are figuring out how to react to increasing uncertainty about demand. Asian steel producers are pushing for adaptations to the recently changed pricing mechanisms, moving the pricing system to shorter term contracts. At the same time various Asian players are starting to buy iron ore assets in the price range of hundreds of millions to several billions of dollars; threatening the dominance of incumbents.
Rio Tinto is trying to buy into uranium at a moment where industry shares are depressed because of the nuclear disaster in Japan last year. The bid for Hathor signals Rio’s management still believes in the potential of the industry. The company says it accounts for 16% of the world’s uranium production from mines in Australia and Namibia.
About half of the workers at Freeports’ Grasberg mine went on strike to demand higher pay, forcing the company to shut down operations. Several strikers have been killed by police and unknown gunmen in the past week.
Rio Tinto buys Hathor Exploration, a uranium exploration business active in Canada, for over $500mln. Key asset of Hathor is Saskatchewan’s Roughrider deposit.
Junior miner Ferrous Resources, worth just over $3bln, is looking for a buyer. BHP Billiton and a Chinese company are talking with management to negotiate a price.
Freeport’s social troubles in Indonesia are the latest labor issue in a rise of labor unrest in the latest year after years of relatively peace in the industry. The unrest mainly affects copper producers, which have seen profits rise with high copper prices, but did not want to increase worker’s compensation too much to secure long term competitiveness.
The large diversified miners are increasingly focusing their attention on a limited number of extremely large operations, divesting smaller operations. With the spending power of the ‘mining supermajors’ a divide seems to open between the few operators of the world’s key supply areas and the many operators of a range of smaller operations.
Rio Tinto might face challenges selling the unwanted aluminium assets in one package. Very few companies are able to do acquisitions worth over $7bln, and many of the companies that have the spending power might face antitrust limitations.
“Rio Tinto, the Anglo-Australian mining group, is re-entering the potash business through a joint venture with a Russian fertiliser producer which holds extensive exploration permits in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan.
Rio will initially acquire a 40 per cent stake in nine blocks covering an area of 241,000 hectares currently held by North Atlantic Potash, a subsidiary of Russia’s JSC Acron. Under the deal, Rio can eventually raise its stake as high as 80 per cent.”
“Mining heavyweight BHP Billiton is “aggressively” pursuing potash projects in Saskatchewan along with its Jansen asset, the company said on Wednesday.
“Although these are at an early stage, the data acquired suggests they have the ability to support significant potential developments,” spokesperson Ruban Yogarajah said, adding that the combined properties could “at least” match Jansen’s planned output of eight-million tons a year.
BHP Billiton in June said it approved a further $488-million to develop Jansen, bringing its total investment in the project to $1.2-billion.”
Approx. 33mln tons of potash are mined annually, with Canada accounting for approx. 30% of global production. With price per ton of around $400-$500 the global market totals $13-17bln annually.
Both BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto are planning to move or expand in the Potash industry. BHP Billiton already is operating in Saskatchewan and tried to make a big move by taking over PotashCorp last year. Rio Tinto sold its potash exploration projects in 2009, but tries to re-enter in a JV with a small Russian player.
Implications:
The potash market it currently dominated by 2 marketing ‘cartels’: Canpotex (PotashCorp, Mosaic, Agrium) and BPC (Belarusian Potash Company: Silvinit & Uralkali), which control close to three quarters of global sales and typically copy each others pricing agreements with large customers. The rise of the large diversified players in the business (apart from BHP and Rio, Vale is also building its potash business) could break the power of these cartels and might move the market to pricing based more on spot prices.
From a technology and production standpoint it makes a lot of sense to have diversified mining companies, specialized in running large scale extraction projects, operate potash mines. Only on the marketing and sales side of the business synergies will be hard to realize, but companies like BHP and Rio Tinto have the experience and size required to set up a strong marketing presence.
“Cynthia Carroll, chief executive of Anglo American, has downplayed speculation that the multinational miner is on the hunt for acquisitions, saying that bid prices in the mining sector have been ‘too high’ for the company to enter the fray.
‘We are always looking at possible combinations across the sector and always evaluating whether it’s a better business case to build our own projects or look at acquisition opportunities,’ said Cynthia Carroll. But she added that ‘prices are still too high’, basing her comments on recent bids and takeovers.
In recent months, Anglo has been linked to a bid for Riversdale Mining, an Mozambique-focused coal miner that was ultimately bought by Rio Tinto for A$4bn. More recently, it considered a possible bid for Macarthur Coal, an Australian coal miner. Macarthur has since accepted a joint A$4.9bn ($5.2bn) bid from a consortium led by Peabody of the US. The bid values the Macarthur at 18 times estimated 2012 earnings.”
Anglo American has not made any large acquisitions since 2008, when it bought several iron ore assets in Brazil. Of the 5 large diversified miners the company has been least active in large scale M&A over the past 10 years, as depicted below (click on image for larger version).
Implications:
If the acquisitions would be paid in shares, the current low share prices would hinder acquisitions (large dilution of ownership). However, with the current large operating profits acquisitions are mainly paid in cash.
Valuation of companies is done in various ways, based on standalone company value and additional financial and operational synergies of a change of control, all leading to different results: a ‘true value’ of a company can never be determined, as the value differs per acquirer and valuation assumptions are debatable. However, the fact that various companies are acquiring targets in Southern Africa which would have a better operational match with Anglo American (= higher synergies) implies that Anglo is more conservative in its valuation, being cautious to overpay.
“Anglo American is considering a counterbid for Macarthur Coal in an attempt to gatecrash a A$4.7bn (US$4.9bn) bid for the Australian coal group from Peabody Energy and ArcelorMittal. Earlier this month, Macarthur said it was open to offers that valued its business at nearly A$5bn after formally rejecting an ‘opportunistic’ bid from Peabody Energy of the US and steelmaker ArcelorMittal.
People familiar with the bid process said there were a number of interested parties, one of which was Anglo American. The mining group is said to be working with its traditional advisers, which include Goldman Sachs.
It is not clear whether Anglo will proceed with any offer, and talks are expected to come to a head in the next week. A deal would be the largest by Anglo since 2007, with its recent blooming profits creating a degree of financial flexibility that the company has not enjoyed for several years.”
Peabody and ArcelorMittal have made an offer to the shareholders of Macarthur after Macarthur’s board declined to agree to the offer and not search for higher bidders.
Anglo’s metallurgical coal operations are currently mainly located in Queensland, giving a good geographical match with Macarthur’s operations.
Implications:
The current stake of ArcelorMittal in Macarthur will be an important hinderance for other parties to make a counterbid. If their bid would succeed, they would still be left with ArcelorMittal as an important party in the board room.
Potential other parties interested in buying Macarthur could be Chinese steel makers and/or coal miners, other large coal producers in Australia (Rio Tinto, BMA), government backed Indian coal miners, or even Vallar/Bumi. Based on the proximity to existing operations Anglo would be able to justify a higher premium than new entrants in the Queensland coal industry.
“Rio Tinto’s iron-ore-driven profits set company records for the interim period but shares fell for a fourth day as investors’ flight from equities hits resources stocks hardest.
Tom Albanese, chief executive of the mining company, commented on the widening gap between miners’ rising earnings momentum and falling share prices. ‘There is a distorted set of economic drivers associated with the current uncertainties with respect to us and the European debt markets,’ he told the Financial Times. ‘You have an exaggerated diversion of ‘risk on’ to ‘risk off’ trades. It is difficult to come to any conclusions, but this is a backdrop that could persist for some time.’
… sector-wide pressures of rising costs and adverse exchange rates weighed on Rio’s profitability, contributing to earnings that missed consensus expectations. Higher costs for energy, materials and equipment lowered Rio’s underlying earnings by $479m, and exchange rates between the weak US dollar and strong Australian and Canadian dollars – currencies in which it incurs costs – reduced them by a further $810m in the first half.”
Total increase of earnings because of price increases ($5bln) was offset by almost $3bln lower earnings because of volumes, costs and exchange rates.
Just as Anglo American, the company gives a detailed explanation of the rising costs, providing rare details on the waiting times for various types of equipment (see outlook – page 8). The outlook shows the average delivery time for equipment currently is approx. 6-9 months higher than average.
The impact of lost volumes because of weather impact (hurricanes & floods) in the first half of the year, often mentioned as important driver of prices, is only $245mln.
Implications:
Rio Tinto does not appear to be concerned with the current importance of iron ore as the driver of earnings. The company regards construction industry growth in China the most important metric for the economic outlook and mentions expansion of production capacity of Western Australian iron ore mines as key development priority. The company joins competitor Vale in this single-minded focus, while BHP Billiton appears to be more committed to diversify, as signalled by its acquisitions in the shale gas industry.
The presented $26bln capex package does not yet include projects in advanced feasibility stage such as Simandou (iron ore in Guinea). The relatively conservative dividend and buy-back program does leave room for very aggressive development spending and helps the company to keep a very low gearing. So far all major miners choose to keep the gearing low despite their positive commodities market forecasts.
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