Photo by: Bloomberg
PERTH (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed Yancoal Australia has made a tag-along offer to acquire Mitsubishi Development’s 32.4% interest in the Hunter Valley operations for $710-million.
The tag-along offer fulfilled Yancoal’s obligation to Mitsubishi under the sale and purchase agreement for Yancoal’s $2.45-billion buy of Coal & Allied, announced in January this year.
Coal & Allied is the holding company for mining major Rio Tinto’s thermal coal business in the Hunter Valley region of New South Wales. It holds a 67.6% stake in the Hunter Valley Operations mine, with Mitsubishi holding the remaining interest. Coal & Allied also holds an 80% stake in the Mount Thorley mine and a 55.6% stake in the Warkworth mine, as well as a 36.5% interest in Port Waratah Coal Services, which owns a coal export terminal at the Port of Newcastle.
“The binding offer is another important milestone in the strategic acquisition of Coal & Allied and sends a clear message to all stakeholders of Yancoal Australia’s continued investment into the local resources sector,” said Yancoal CEO Reinhold Schmidt.
“We have negotiated a commercially robust offer in the best interest of all parties and the future growth of Coal & Allied assets.”
Schmidt said that with Rio’s support, Yancoal was looking forward to progressing the next steps in the Coal & Allied transaction to become Australia’s largest independent coal producer.
The Mitsubishi transaction was conditional upon the completion of the Coal & Allied transaction, as well as the receipt of the necessary regulatory approvals.
Last month, the Foreign Investment Review Board approved Yancoal’s acquisition of Coal & Allied.