Anglo American Next In Chinalco’s Sights?

The consolidation of the global natural resources industry in response to the bursting of the the commodities bubble of the early years of the decade and the subsequent global recession means one of two things: more joint ventures such as the one between BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto in iron ore or more combinations within [...]

Hunan Valin Gets Australia’s Approval For Fortescue Stake

The second of the three big outstanding Chinese investments in Australian natural resources companies has got the nod of approval from Canberra. Hunan Valin Iron and Steel can go ahead with taking a $438 million stake in Fortescue Metals. The decision comes less than a week after Australia barred another state-owned Chinese firm, Minmetals, from [...]

Chinalco Gets Australia’s Limited Nod For Rio Tinto Stake

Australia is walking a fine line over Chinese investment in its natural resources. It has approved Chinalco’s recent purchase of a minority stake in Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto, but said any further share purchases will require prior approval. Nor can Chinalco have a seat on Rio’s board, Wayne Swan, Australia’s Federal Treasurer, ruled on Sunday.
State-owned [...]

China May Want To Buy Into BHP Billiton

Reports from Australia ahead of that country’s prime minister’s visit to Beijing that China wants to elbow its way into the takeover by BHP Billiton, the world’s largest mining company, of its rival Rio Tinto.
In February, it acquired a 9.3% stake in Rio for $14 billion through state-owned Chinalco. Wanting to secure raw materials for [...]

Once Bitten Twice Shy

State-owned China National Offshore Oil Co (CNOOC) ran into a wall of xenophobia that stopped dead its bid for the U.S. oil company Unocal in 2005. With the world even more sensitive to China’s global scavenge for natural resources, state-owned Aluminum Corporation of China (Chinalco) is seeking to preempt similar objections to its investment in [...]

Rattling The Can

Already nervous about the proposed $100 billion-plus merger between two natural resources giants, BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto, China, one of the world’s biggest consumers of the iron ore, aluminum and other minerals that BHP and Rio Tinto dig up, has jumped in with both feet.
Aluminum Corp. of China (Chinalco) and the U.S.’s Alcoa staged [...]

Steeling For A Takeover Fight III

“The report that Baosteel plans to buy Rio Tinto is untrue,” says Xu Lejiang, chairman of China’s biggest steel maker, quoted in the China Securities Journal. That is the same Xu who earlier was quoted in 21st Century Business Herald that a bid for the U.K.-based natural resources company was “quite likely”.
So take your pick. [...]

Steeling For A Takeover Fight II

The notion of a Chinese consortium bid for Rio Tinto is back in play, with the 21st Century Business Herald, here via AP, quoting Baosteel’s chairman, Xu Lejiang, as saying there was a strong possibility of such a bid.
The case for the country’s steel makers owning a significant supplier of their raw material has [...]

Steeling For A Takeover Fight

The unsourced report in China Business, here via AFX, that China’s newly launched sovereign wealth fund, China Investment Co., and a number of steel firms, including China’s biggest, Shanghai-based Baosteel, will bid $200 billion for U.K.-based Rio Tinto hits two themes.
The first is China’s concern that a combination of two of the world’s largest natural [...]

Stake In The Ground

So much attention is paid in the West to China’s pursuit of natural resources, and oil in particular, in Africa that it is often overlooked how China is not having things all its own way.
A reminder of that in this piece by Patrick Barta in the Asian edition of the Wall Street Journal, following on [...]