Chapter 448 Mining Acquisition

After Christmas, the first season of "Britain's Got Talent" aired on ITV also completed its finale.

This new program produced by Stuart Media was still a success. At this time, Bonnie finally felt relieved and no longer had to focus too much on the company.

After Christmas, Barron and his team went to Australia.

This time, in addition to Barron and his wife, there were also Earl Bute's family who came together.

Different from the humidity and cold in London at this time, Australia is located in the southern hemisphere. Contrary to London, it is summer, and the daily temperature is between 20 and 30 degrees, which is considered a relatively comfortable time.

One day ago, they walked out of the villa in the cold wind in London, and now they were on the white sandy beach, sunbathing.

Barron and the others first came to Whitehaven Beach in the Whitsunday Islands, Queensland.

The beach here is composed of high-purity silica sand, which is soft and cool when you walk on it.

Bonnie has been pregnant for nearly six months, and even when she is lying on the beach, she will be cared for by a dedicated team of nurses.

Barron occasionally walks along the beach with his three young children in his arms...

Among them, naturally included his daughter Ethel.

Although she is his de facto biological daughter, now in name, Barron is Ethel's godfather, well, in the name of father and daughter.

“Argent Real Estate Group is progressing very smoothly in Australia. We have already established relationships here. After acquiring a local real estate company, we took over their project and have already started construction on the piece of land we acquired in Melbourne. Construction…”

When Barron sat on the lounge chair on the beach, picked up the iced juice and took a sip, Earl Bute said to him.

Well, speaking of it, Earl Bute has maintained a good figure. Although his muscle lines are not as sculptured as Barron's, at least he can still see his abdominal muscles - except for the pink he is wearing. Board shorts are something that Barron cannot accept in terms of taste...

"It is true that Australia's economy has good prospects. As a resource export destination, it is also very attractive to investors. Recently, it has also made good attempts in the field of technology."

"But in European eyes, this is always a wild place, isn't it?"

The Stuart Mining Group of the Bute family also has operations in Australia, but in terms of scale, it is certainly not comparable to the giants BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto here...

But what he said is right. If the United States had not become the "big brother" now, I am afraid that even the people there and the Europeans would still look down upon them.

If the original Americans were mainly Puritans from England, then here in Australia, they are purely the descendants of exiles. In their chain of contempt, Australia lags far behind the United States.

"I will go to our Argent Real Estate Group branch in Melbourne to have a look later. Will you go with me?"

"Oh, no, Ian, my main job this time is to accompany Bonnie on vacation..."

Barron shook his head and said.

"The water temperature is nice now, why don't you go swim in the sea for a while?"

The person who came over to tell them this was Countess Chris who had already changed into a swimsuit. Although she was not wearing a bikini that was too revealing, but a one-piece swimsuit, the style was still very tempting and very... Good to show off her attractive figure.

"Where are the children?"

Although Chris invited the two of them to go swimming in her words, her eyes always fell on Barron... Well, I have to say that, just wearing beach shorts, Barron's figure and muscle outline were indeed Attract attention……

When she heard her husband ask about the child, she glanced at him and said:

"The servants are watching. Do you want to lie down for a while?"

"Uh...yes, the sunshine is very comfortable now, isn't it?"

So, Barron "had" to accompany the Countess to swim in the sea...

There is no danger on the beach here. It has been artificially modified. In terms of water quality, Barron is really not afraid of anyone - even his beautiful coach once marveled at his swimming ability. His speed is not inferior to that of professional athletes, and his athletic ability in the water is extremely strong.

Well, it's serious athletic ability.

But after entering the sea, Barron understood that the countess was probably not serious about asking him to swim with her.

When the two of them gradually moved away from the shore and approached a reef in the sea, behind the reef, blocking the eyes of people on the shore...

Barron supported the countess from behind, while she rested her hands on a smooth stone surface.

As he paddled harder, the waves around the two of them grew bigger and bigger...

At this time, Earl Bute, who was sitting on the deck chair on the shore, was following the two people's tracks with his eyes. After seeing them hiding on the reef, he felt a sense of loss.

…

Of course, they were not limited to Australia. After Earl Bute went to Melbourne, Barron took everyone to New Zealand.

Compared with the coast of Australia, New Zealand is slightly cooler. After all, many places here have high altitudes.

Because they need to take care of Bonnie, who needs to be more careful when moving, their trip is considered slow.

By the time they returned to Australia from New Zealand, it was already mid-January 2006.

After arriving in Melbourne, while everyone was taking a break, Barron also met Andrew Cole, CEO of West Africa Mining Company.

"Your Highness the Duke, after two months of negotiations, our acquisition has finally been approved by the OZ Mining Company's board of directors and shareholders' meeting. However, the details of the acquisition will still need to be reviewed by Australia."

Before Andrew Cole became the CEO of West African Mining Company, he once held a management position in Rio Tinto, so he is very familiar with many situations of Australian mining companies. He is responsible for this acquisition, and It is a very correct choice.

OZ Minerals Ltd is headquartered in Melbourne and is a medium-sized mining company with a market capitalization of A$1.6 billion (approximately US$1.2 billion at the current exchange rate).

In October last year, Andrew Cole was assigned to take charge of the West African Mining Company's acquisition of OZ Mining. The main reason for the matter was that OZ Mining suffered serious losses due to operational errors in their futures investment department. The losses resulted in a debt of up to 1.2 billion Australian dollars that was about to mature and could not be repaid as scheduled, thus triggering a series of chain reactions and causing OZ Mining to fall into crisis.

Under such circumstances, it is naturally timely for West Africa Mining to propose an overall acquisition of this company.

It's just that the negotiation process this time was not so smooth, because for a mining company like this, especially a company involving a lot of debt relationships, just conducting a thorough due diligence investigation on it cannot be completed in a few days. of.

Moreover, OZ Mining also owns the mining of many minerals, including minerals in Sepon, Golden Grove, Century, Rosebery, Avebury, Dugald River, Prominent Hill, Martabe, etc., and they also have minerals in Cambodia and Thailand.

The authenticity of the reserves and valuation of these minerals is not an easy matter - the market value is the market value. If you really want to acquire the other party, you certainly can't do it based on the market value corresponding to the stock price. The two parties will conduct the transaction at these prices. After many rounds of negotiations, the final result was finally reached.

According to the current contract, West Africa Group's acquisition of OZ Mining Company will cost a total of US$1.8 billion (including the assumption of A$1.2 billion in debt that OZ Mining needs to immediately repay, equivalent to US$900 million), which is higher than the previous market value of OZ Mining. A full 50% premium!

However, although West Africa Group has reached an acquisition agreement with OZ Mining Company at this time, the contract still needs to wait for the approval of the Australian government before it can take effect, starting the process of privatizing OZ Mining and completing the delisting.