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M&A Share Attractiveness Ranking – February 2013
The latest update of the M&A share attractiveness ranking for the world’s 40 largest mining companies demonstrates the current slump of gold (and to lesser extent copper) mining stocks. Discounting Ivanhoe, which has been taken out by Rio Tinto, ENRC tops the list of companies that might become the target of an acquisition. The company’s stock moved higher over the past weeks on acquisition rumors, reducing its attractiveness ranking, but analysts still see approximately 50% upside in the stock. Behind ENRC the ranking is dominated by gold and copper miners, with Anglo American the only non gold or copper miner in the top 10. Low gold and copper prices and the emergence of gold ETFs has depressed the share price of the miners over the past year, but most analysts still expect better times for this group of miners.
The thebusinessofmining.com M&A share attractiveness ranking is a combination of analyst expectations and current share level compared to the annual high, normalized against BHP’s share performance. The ranking provides a market perspective of how ‘cheap’ a stock is for potential acquirers.
Mining M&A – Top 40 Share attractiveness ranking
Valuations across the mining industry are coming down as a result of low commodity prices and uncertainty about the future of the global economy. Many companies are reviewing investment plans, pressured by investors to return money to shareholders if the project pipeline is short of feasible investment opportunities. Most companies in the industry will be extremely careful with large-scale M&A at this moment, but for some companies with either a lot of cash or a good position to give out more equity the reduced prices could provide opportunities to make a big acquisition. The ranking presented below presents the attractiveness of acquiring any of the Top 40 mining companies.
An acquisition of any of the world’s largest 40 miners will have to be financed to a large extent by raising additional capital from equity holders, as the acquisition price would be too high for most companies to pay cash after taking on more debt. The attractiveness of executing a share deal to acquire a company is split into the current level of share depression (historic performance) and the outlook for the share as given in analyst targets (future performance).
The share depression is represented in the chart and the ranking below by taking the ratio of current share price compared to 52-week high, normalized to the performance of BHP Billiton, the largest company in the group (i.e. share depression of BHP Billiton = 1.0). The 52-week high is used surprisingly often in acquisitions as the price paid, as it is easy to accept for many shareholders of the target company that they will receive the highest price over the past year.
The outlook for shares is given by the ratio of consensus analyst target dividend by current share price. Whatever the historic performance of a share, the outlook ratio shows the expected potential for the share. For these large mining companies the consensus target is typically formed out of at least 10 equity analyst and banker targets. An overall ranking score of share attractiveness is calculated by dividing the outlook ratio by the share depression ratio.
In this initial ranking of attractive targets, using closing share price of August 3rd 2012, the top 5 positions are claimed by ENRC, Ivanhoe, Kinross, Peabody, and Anglo American. Each of these shares has taking a significant beating over the past year. Apart from Anglo they have all dropped about twice as far from their year high share price as BHP Billiton. However, analyst targets for each of the companies are high too, each being expected to gain at least 50% of value in the relatively short term. The combination of a big drop in share price and a promising upside makes the companies attractive for potential buyers. Clearly many more factors play a role in target selection, and politics, synergy potential, and several other factors rule out quick action for most of the top targets in the ranking. However, the chart and ranking below do serve well as a quick scan to see which companies are in the ‘danger zone’ of becoming an acquisition target.
©2012 | Wilfred Visser | thebusinessofmining.com
Rio Tinto Iron Ore General Manager expects more M&A activity
In preparation the ‘Mergers and Acquisitions in Mining’ conference October 30 and 31 in Sydney, Cody Whipperman, the General Manager of Business Development for Rio Tinto Iron ore, expressed his view that iron ore M&A will pick up as a result of lower prices and decreasing share values:
We’ve come off extremely high prices for global iron ore, driven primarily, if not exclusively, by demand from China. Inflated asset and equity vales have begun to deflate back to more reasonable levels, which should continue if the downturn persists and project financing remains difficult. The last few years have not been a great M&A environment for those seeking value. The next few years should be better and those with cash or access to financing should be able to take advantage of these opportunities and find real value. So, I think the next few years will prove to be good for value-driven M&A activity.
Anglo chief plays down acquisition talk
“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.”
Source: Financial Times, September 13 2011
Observations:
- 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.
©2011 | Wilfred Visser | thebusinessofmining.com
Anglo American eyes Macarthur coal
“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.”
Source: Financial Times, August 21 2011
Observations:
- 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.
©2011 | Wilfred Visser | thebusinessofmining.com
BHP to Acquire Petrohawk Energy in $12 Billion Deal
“BHP Billiton Ltd. said Thursday it plans to acquire Petrohawk Energy Corp. for more than $12 billion in cash, giving the Anglo-Australian mining company access to large shale assets in Texas and Louisiana in one of the largest deals of the year. BHP will pay $38.75 per share, a 65% premium to Petrohawk’s closing price on Thursday of $23.49 a share.
The deal marks an important strategic step for BHP, which last year was rebuffed in a highly politicized $38.6 billion bid for Canada’s Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc. One of the largest global mining companies, BHP has been eager to spend its war chest to diversify from minerals and mining into oil and gas. The Petrohawk deal will double BHP’s resource base in oil and gas, allowing the company to increase its production by about 10% for the rest of the decade, the company said.”
Source: Wall Street Journal, July 15 2011
Observations:
- Key synergies targeted in the deal are in financing new projects: Petrohawk has the reserves, and BHP brings the funds to develop them. The premium of 65% reflects this increased investment, as it values the company on 7.5x PE rather than 4-5x PE.
- Last February BHP bought a set of shale gas assets from Chesapeake Energy for close to $5bln.
- In a poll on this blog in February 57% of respondents thought BHP should expand further in the oil & gas arena.
Implications:
- The $12bln tender offer is all-cash, largely solving BHP’s ‘problem’ of a huge cash pile that some people rather had seen returned to shareholders. With current high iron ore prices the company is generating cash much faster than it is able to invest in organic growth.
- The acquisition increases the weight of the petroleum business in BHP’s portfolio and makes BHP enter in the top 10 of largest petroleum companies in the USA. This development follows the entry of various large petroleum companies in the mining area through oil sand projects. Still it is unclear if more miners will position themselves as ‘large scale commodity producers’ active in both mining and petroleum businesses.
©2011 | Wilfred Visser | thebusinessofmining.com
Top Miner’s M&A History
Gold Miner’s M&A History
