Rio Tinto (NYSE:RIO) doesn’t plan to make a hostile takeover offer for Turquoise Hill (NYSE:TRQ) if shareholders reject the company’s revised C$43/share bid.
Rio Tinto has “broad support” from Turquoise Hill shareholders, Bold Baatar, CEO of Rio Tinto Copper told Seeking Alpha in an interview earlier on Thursday. “We will move as fast as we can” to get to a definitive agreement done.
Baatar explained that Turquoise Hill holders are taking a risk by not accepting the offer as “there could be very significant” dilution if the offer goes away and equity raise has to occur.
Turquoise Hill holder SailingStone Capital reportedly plans to vote against Rio Tinto’s (RIO) C$43/share for the company, according to a Globe & Mail report earlier. Turquoise Hill (TRQ) shareholders Pentwater Capital and SailingStone said in March that Rio’s original offer for C$34/share was too low.
Rio Tinto (RIO) had discussions with a number of minority shareholders and Rio Tinto’s special committee also held talks with investors so if the committee thought the C$43 share offer wasn’t going to be accepted, they likely wouldn’t have recommended it, according to a person familiar.
Rio’s (RIO) C$43 deal, which values the Turquoise Hill (TRQ) minority share capital at ~US$3.3B, comes two weeks after Turquoise Hill rebuffed a lower offer of C$40/share.
Rio (RIO) said the deal, which also agreed to several new measures aimed at improving Turquoise Hill’s (TRQ) near-term liquidity, represents its best and final offer.
Turquoise Hill (TRQ), which is 51%-owned by Rio (RIO), owns 66% of the Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold mine in Mongolia, while the rest is owned by Mongolian government.
The deal doesn’t require any approvals from Mongolian authorities, according to a person familiar.
Earlier Thursday a Canaccord analyst said that Rio’s increased TRQ offer is likely to win shareholder approval.
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