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Posts Tagged ‘Indonesia’
Mining Weekly 51/’12: Freeport, Xstrata, & Bumi
December 16, 2012
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Top Stories of December:
- Freeport diversifies further into oil & gas
- Copper miner Freeport McMoran surprised the market by acquiring two American oil & gas companies for approx. $9bn, taking on a lot of target debt to make a total deal size of approx. $20bn, the second largest acquisition in the industry this year.
- Freeport did not request shareholder approval for the diversifying acquisitions, leaving a large part of the shareholder base unhappy with the deal and the stock price dropping approx. 15%.
- Sources: Freeport presentation; Wall Street Journal; Financial Times
- Xstrata puts Tampakan project on hold
- Xstrata’s $5.9bn Tampakan copper project in the Philippines is put on hold while waiting for government approvals: the federal government doesn’t want to give the go ahead before the mining law is reformed, and the local government is opposing the issuance of an environmental permit based on a ban on open pit mining.
- Sources: Reuters; Sagittarius / Xstrata
- Bumi, Bakrie, and Rotschild continue their fight
- The board of Bumi plc has indicated that it favors the Bakrie offer to buy out the assets of the Indonesian coal producer over Rothschilds offer to increase the stake in those assets. Bakrie’s offer implies that the shared ownership of assets by Bumi and Bakrie comes to an end.
- The board also indicated that it does not intend to sell the stakes in Berau to Bakrie, which would mean the company does not completely revert to a cash shell.
- Sources: Financial Times 1, 2; Jakarta Post
Trends & Implications:
- Deloitte published its annual report with the top trends in the mining industry for the coming year: on top of the list is the continued high cost of doing business, which is forcing many companies to reconsider development projects (see Tampakan above). The full list of trends is:
- Counting the costs: Paying the price of bullish behavior
- Managing demand uncertainty: Conflicting market indicators magnify volatility
- Capital project deceleration: Quality trumps quantity in the project pipeline
- Preparing for the M&A storm: Market indicators point to rising deal volumes
- Governments eye the mining prize: Resource nationalism remains
- Combating corruption: Miners are being held to higher standards
- Climbing the social ladder: A new level of responsible behavior
- Plugging the talent gap: Skills shortages still loom
- Playing it safe: Using analytics to generate insights and improve safety outcomes
- At the IT edge: Getting the most out of emerging – and existing – technologies
- Xstrata’s decision to put the Tampakan project, one of the largest development projects in the copper industry, on hold fits two trends: the increasing importance of alignment with both federal and local governments in developing countries, especially around when governments and legislature are changing; and the hesitance to undertake any large investments in a time of rising costs and uncertainty around demand growth.
2012 | Wilfred Visser | thebusinessofmining.com
Check my latest column in the free online journal The International Resource Journal on the importance of iron ore derivatives.
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Mining Week 45/’12: PotashCorp and Rothschild on the offensive
November 4, 2012
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Top Stories of the Week:
- PotashCorp in talks to acquire ICL for $14bn
- PotashCorp, the Canadian phosphate miner that was subject of a $39bn takeover attempt by BHP Billiton in 2010, is in talks with the Israeli government to acquire Israel Chemicals (ICL) and merge it with its own operations. PotashCorp already holds a 14% stake of ICL. The remaining share is worth roughly $14bn.
- In an initial reaction the Israeli government, which holds a golden share in ICL’s mother company, indicated that the sale of ICL to PotashCorp would not be in the best interest of the country. In a later statement the government did indicate it would be open to a formal bid.
- Sources: Wall Street Journal; BusinessWeek; Fox Business
- Rothschild aims to increase Berau interest
- In response to Bakrie’s proposal to buy out Bumi plc, Nathan Rothschild, the company’s founder, is said to look for partners to make a counterbid for Berau’s Indonesian coal assets.
- Bumi Resources and Berau are the two key asset groups of Bumi plc, the result of a deal between Vallar plc and Bumi. Following falling call prices minority shareholder Bakrie has proposed a deal in which it would buy Bumi plc’s assets and thus separate Rothschilds and Bakrie’s interests.
- Sources: Wall Street Journal; Financial Times; Bloomberg
Trends & Implications:
- The Israeli response that selling ICL would not be in the country’s interest might be preliminary. Although 60% of ICL’s mining activity takes place in Israel, centered around the Dead See, it is unlikely that PotashCorp would want to tune down those activities. Only a very small part of ICL’s production is actually sold in Israel, and those products could be seen as global commodities, making it hard for the government to justify a case in which a sale would be rejected based on national security. The issue that PotashCorp and Israel will need to figure out is how much overhead jobs to leave in the country and/or how to compensate for the potential loss of jobs in office activity (similar to the negotiations undertaken by BHP Billiton with the Canadian government when trying to acquire PotashCorp).
- Rothschild’s attempt to find new partners to continue his Indonesian activities with Berau does not seem te be a step that is in the interest of shareholders. Entering in a bidding contest with Bakrie for the assets it already controls is not going to improve the financial position of a company plagued by dropping commodity prices. If Bakrie actually manages to secure the funds required to execute the buy-out proposal it is likely that Rothschild will be able to find other, less politically sensitive, cheaper assets to work with. Whatever the result of this power struggle, it appears that Bakrie and Rothschild will not continue to own stakes of the same company.
2012 | Wilfred Visser | thebusinessofmining.com
Categories: Mining Week
acquisition, Bakrie, Berau, Bumi, business, coal, fertilizer, ICL, Indonesia, Israel, Israeli Chemicals, mining, mining business, potash, Rothschild
Mining Week 42/’12: Bakrie vs. Bumi
October 13, 2012
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Top Stories of the Week:
- Bakrie proposed to buy Bumi’s assets
- The Bakrie Group, which owns approx. 24% of Bumi Plc, has an offer to buy Bumi plc’s assets (Berau and Bumi Resources) and leave the London listed miner active in Indonesia behind as a cash shell. The group previously held 48%, but sold 24% to Borneo Lumbung to ease debt issues.
- Bumi’s share price has dropped 80% versus the high in July 2011 on the back of low coal prices and governance issues.
- Sources: Financial Times 1; Financial Times 2; Wall Street Journal
Bumi plc structure: London listed miner owns a stake in Berau coal and Bumi resources.
- BHP Billiton seeks to cut costs
- BHP Billiton announced it would cut jobs in an attempt to cut costs in its iron ore division, attempting to preserve margins at low iron ore prices.
- The company also recently initiated cost reduction measures in its base metal operations and announced a freeze of executive compensation.
- Sources: BHP Billiton Base Metals briefing; International Resource Journal; Wall Street Journal
Trends & Implications:
- Bakrie’s move to leave Bumi plc could imply the end of the Indonesian coal ambitions of Rothschild’s venture. If Bakrie finds the money to execute the deal, it offers other shareholders an opportunity to limit their losses. Bumi could try to reinvent itself and buy assets in other regions with the cash received for Bumi resources and Berau, but it would start with significantly less cash to acquire companies than in its attempt in 2011.
- The updated M&A share attractiveness tracker shows a relative leveling of the playing field in terms of mega M&A over the past month. South African listed companies clearly took a major hit, but as the outlook for these companies deteriorated at the same time the shares have not gained much attractiveness from an acquisition standpoint. Fortescue managed to fend of urgent debt issues and saw its share price rise, but it remains one of the more attractive acquisition targets. BHP Billiton lost its position as the best positioned acquirer as outlook for the company deteriorates with the expectation of slowing global demand.(
2012 | Wilfred Visser | thebusinessofmining.com
Categories: Mining Week
acquisition, Bakrie, base metals, Berau, BHP, Bumi, business, coal, cost cutting, Fortescue, Indonesia, iron ore, job, jobs, merger, mining, mining business, Rothschild, share
Mining Week 24/’12: Steam coal world is changing
June 11, 2012
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Top Stories of the Week:
- Indonesian and US supply drives coal prices lower
- A surge of exports of thermal coal (used for power generation) from Indonesia and the increasing exports from the USA caused by domestic replacement of coal demand by gas demand are driving thermal coal prices to the lowest point in 2 years.
- Continued low sales prices are causing various coal miners to get close to financial distress. As their share prices have decreased too, analysts expect a new wave of acquisitions in the industry.
- Sources: Financial Times; Seeking Alpha
- Alpha closes steam coal mines in USA
- Alpha Natural Resources, the company that recently bought Massey for $8.5bln, is reducing steam coal production and cutting approx. 150 jobs by closing 4 small mines in Kentucky and offices in 4 US cities, aiming to reduce G&A by 50-60$mln/year.
- The company mentions low coal prices and new regulations for coal-fired power plants as the key reasons that the mines have become uneconomical and are unlikely to return to making a profit.
- Sources: Alpha Natural Resources news release; Wall Street Journal; Reuters
- Xstrata reveals GlenStrata organization structure
- The organization structure revealed in the merger documentation supporting Glencore’s bid for Xstrata shows a merger of the organization with very little initial integration. The heads of marketing of the business units continue to report to Glasenberg, and the heads of the asset groups continue to report to Davis.
- Glasenberg agreed to not using his significant share of voting power to force any changes of the or structure for the first years after the merger.
- Sources: Xstrata – Glencore merger documentation
Trends & Implications:
- The global changes of steam/energy coal business are mainly demand-driven. China and India are building coal-fired power stations at a high pace, increasing their share of global demand. At the same time stronger regulation in the Western world and the promise of cheap gas are suppressing the demand. As a result the coal business is getting more global, with a larger part of demand being imported from overseas.
- The business unit focus of the GlenStrata organization reveals an inclination to try to realize the arbitrage opportunities that make up a large part of the merger’s synergy potential on a product-by-product basis. Global markets for each of the products is diverse enough to make a generic approach to geographic, product, and timing arbitrage unpractical.
©2012 | Wilfred Visser | thebusinessofmining.com
Categories: Mining Week
Alpha Natural Resources, ANR, business, coal, G&A, Glencore, GlenStrata, Indonesia, Kentucky, Massey, metallurgical coal, mining, mining business, power plant, steam coal, USA, Xstrata
Mining Week 51/’11: Grasberg back in business
December 18, 2011
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Top Stories of the Week:
- Freeport McMoran strikes deal on Grasberg
- Freeport reached a two year extension of the collective labor agreement at its Indonesian Grasberg mine after a 3-month strike. The new agreement holds a 40% wage increase over 2 years, improved benefits, and the promise to base wage future negotiations on cost of living and competitor benchmarks.
- Only days after the announcement of the agreement a helicopter transporting Freeport’s workers was shot at close to the mine, wounding one person.
- Sources: Freeport McMoran press release; Wall Street Journal; Financial Times
- Further coal consolidation in Australia
- Less than a year after being put up for sale and then declining all offers made Whitehaven teamed up with Aston Resources to create the largest listed coal mining company in Australia with $5.1bln market value. The deal is structured as a shares only acquisition of Aston by Whitehaven.
- Sources: Financial Times; Whitehaven merger documentation
- Anglo reassured in South African court
- The South African court ruled that the department of mines had no right to grant the mining rights of Sishen iron ore mine in the country to a junior mining company with strong ties to some influential politicians, but that instead the Kumba Iron Ore holds the rights to the mine. Kumba is majority owned by Anglo American.
- Sources: Anglo American press release; Financial Times; Wall Street Journal
Trends & Implications:
- The coal mining industry in Australia is still relatively fragmented, with both the diversified supermajors and many domestic listed and unlisted companies active in the industry. Because the mining districts are much less concentrated than the iron ore or gold districts of the country it is harder to achieve economies of scale that would justify many mergers. The deals taken place are mainly based on transportation and sales negotiation synergies.
- The Wall Street Journal published a good, readable, article this week describing the developments in the mining industry, signaling the combination of two key drivers this year: declining prices, and increasing costs. The resulting low margins will move the focus of many mining companies in the coming years to cost control. However, the winners of this cycle will be the companies that manage to invest during this period with lower profits to build capacity that will make them benefit from the structural increase in prices that will be caused by the structural price increases in the industry. Clearly not all cost increases are structural: equipment and contractor scarcity is mainly a temporary result of an overheated industry; but cost increases resulting from the move to harder forms of mining will stick.
©2011 | Wilfred Visser | thebusinessofmining.com
Categories: Mining Week
Anglo American, Aston Resources, Australia, business, coal, copper, FCX, Freeport-McMoran, Grasberg, Indonesia, Kumba, labor agreement, mining, mining business, Sishen, South Africa, Whitehaven
Mining Week 46/’11: Hard times for emerging market multinationals
November 13, 2011
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Top Stories of the Week:
- Vedanta reports disappointing results
- Earnings of the industrial metals miner with many operations in India dropped despite revenue increase of 43% for the half year. Reduced earnings were caused by losses in the aluminium group and by a weak rupee (with 45% of revenue in India).
- Sources: Vedanta results presentation; Financial Times; Wall Street Journal
- Anglo and Codelco battle over Sur
- Only days after Anglo agreed to pay $5.1bln for a 40% stake of De Beers, it decided to sell a stake of its Chilean Sur copper project to Mitsubishi for $5.4bln. The sale has led to disagreement with Codelco, which claims to hold an option on 49% of the total project, not just on Anglo’s share.
- Sources: Anglo American press release; Financial Times; Wall Street Journal
- Caterpillar chooses to produce in USA and Indonesia, buys into China
- Caterpillar is adjusting its geographic footprint by buying a Chinese manufacturer of underground coal mining equipment and by increasing capacity of mining truck manufacturing in Indonesia and the USA. China’s enormous market is still predominantly using equipment from domestic brands.
- Sources: Caterpillar press release 1; Caterpillar press release 2; Financial Times; Wall Street Journal
Trends & Implications:
- Though the results for Vedanta were not met with enthusiasm on the markets, they were in line with the strategy set out by the management in May: growth, long term value, and sustainability. Vedanta currently chooses to increase its market share instead of generating high profits, in the awareness that the current development will for a large part determine which companies will be the emerging market multinationals of the future.
- The fight between Anglo and Codelco over the ownership stakes in the Chilean copper assets is flanked by a fight by Japanese co-investors and traders. Codelco sided with Mitsui to build its 49% stake at a low valuation, but Anglo found a way to get a higher price by selling part of the asset to rivaling keiretsu Mitsubishi.
M&A overview update
The M&A overview of the Business of Mining has been updated with Anglo’s 40% acquisition of De Beers.
©2011 | Wilfred Visser | thebusinessofmining.com
Categories: Mining Week
aluminium, Anglo American, business, Caterpillar, China, Codelco, copper, India, Indonesia, mining, mining business, mining truck, Vedanta
Mining Week 43/’11: Uncertainty in Indonesia
October 23, 2011
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Top Stories of the Week:
- Freeport McMoran faces strikes in Indonesia
- 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.
- Sources: FCX press release; Financial Times; Wall Street Journal
- Rio Tinto sells aluminium, buys uranium
- Rio Tinto plans to spin off 13 of its smaller aluminium assets for an estimated $8bln. The company wants to focus its attention on top tier assets.
- Sources: Rio Tinto press release; Wall Street Journal; Financial Times
- Rio Tinto buys Hathor Exploration, a uranium exploration business active in Canada, for over $500mln. Key asset of Hathor is Saskatchewan’s Roughrider deposit.
- Sources: Rio Tinto press release; Wall Street Journal; Bloomberg BusinessWeek
- BHP shops for iron ore in Brazil
- 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.
- Sources: Financial Times; Fox Business
Trends & Implications:
- 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.
©2011 | Wilfred Visser | thebusinessofmining.com
Categories: Mining Week
aluminium, Bakrie, BHP Billiton, Brazil, Bumi, business, copper, Ferrous Resources, Grasberg, Hathor exploration, Indonesia, iron ore, mining, mining business, mining week, Rio Tinto, strike, uranium
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