Chapter 449 A surprising discovery

According to Andrew Cole, the review of the acquisition of OZ Mining by West African Mining Company is currently stuck on one thing.

That is, among the minerals owned by OZ Mining, there is a copper-gold mine called Prominent Hill, which is located in the military test area of ​​South Australia. Therefore, the acquisition of this asset is subject to particularly strict scrutiny by the Australian side.

After all, the West African Mining Company is not a British company, Australia's "ally", but is registered in Kolo, West Africa, and its headquarters is also there...

Although Colo has become an observer of the Commonwealth and is negotiating with the Commonwealth to join it, in this not-so-close relationship, they still need to negotiate Australia's military sensitive issues. review.

In this regard, Andrew Cole’s suggestion is to remove the Prominent Hill copper-gold mine, which involves sensitive issues, from the West African Mining Company’s acquisition list of OZ Mining and sell it to other companies. But the problem is that this Under such circumstances, the purchase price offered by the other party may not be very "fair".

Otherwise, we will continue to negotiate with Australia to resolve this issue...

The key is that it is not convenient for Barron to directly involve himself in this matter. If it can be directly stated that this is his own company, then the problem will not exist - after all, the nominal monarch of Australia is still Her Majesty the Queen. In England, there is a direct "father-son" relationship. This matter involving the military test zone is not a problem at all.

The problem now is that although Colo's negotiations with the Commonwealth are about to come to fruition and they will establish a partnership with Australia in the future, they now hope to complete this acquisition in the shortest possible time.

Many problems often arise for no reason.

It is conceivable that Australia's strict review of the Prominent Hill copper-gold mine this time does not exclude the participation of mining giants such as BHP Billiton or Rio Tinto - they certainly do not want new large mining companies to appear in Australia. If the situation of OZ Mining continues to deteriorate, it is also what they hope to be able to acquire assets at a low price.

"I will talk to Earl Ian Butt about the Prominent Hill copper-gold mine. I believe it will be settled soon."

Barron plans to find another way around this review.

The Bute family owns the Stuart Mining Group, which not only has close cooperation with West African mining companies in Kolo, but has also been operating in Australia for many years. Although it cannot compare with BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto in terms of scale, it is backed by the British Australia's "biological father", they will definitely have no problem taking over the Prominent Hill copper and gold mine.

Barron can give up a small amount of interest and let Stuart Mining Group take over the Prominent Hill copper-gold mine first, and even allow them to mine it for a part of the time. After that, if conditions permit, West Africa Mining can buy back the mine.

In this way, we can successfully bypass the Australian review of the Prominent Hill copper-gold mine.

The main reason why West African Mining Company hopes to complete this acquisition as soon as possible is because they own the mining rights of the Carrpateena mining area.

The Kalapatina mining area is 130 kilometers away from Port Augusta, South Australia. Last year, it was discovered that there may be copper-gold associated mines here, so it was bought by OZ Mining Company.

However, it is only used as their reserve mining area for the time being, and no more detailed exploration has been carried out.

It was not until a few years later in the original time and space that OZ Mining sold all its assets except the Prominent Hill copper-gold mine and the Kalapatina mining area that further exploration of the Kalapatina mining area began.

At that time, I finally made a surprising discovery.

According to their exploration results, the mineral combination of the Kalapatina mining area is copper-gold-iron ore-uranium type, which is an IOCG type deposit. At that time, it was proven that the controllable amount of ore was 1 billion tons, including 6.4 million tons of copper metal. , with 210 tons of gold, was the largest undeveloped copper mine in Australia at the time.

Just for such a mining area, even if the current acquisition of OZ Mining Company pays a mere 50% premium, it is an extremely rich harvest for West African mining companies.

What's more, before this, the scale of West African mining companies... was almost the same as that of private mining companies in China.

The project in Colo is mainly carried out in cooperation with Stuart Mining Group.

After acquiring OZ Mining Company, they were able to obtain a sizable professional ore mining team as a basis to enrich the structure of West African Mining Company.

Speaking of which, OZ Mining Company is also very lucky. In the original time and space, their futures investment department made a big mistake and suffered heavy losses. Then they encountered an economic crisis and were forced to sell most of their assets, leaving only Prominent Hill copper-gold mine and Kalapatina mining area later relied on the rich mineral deposits discovered in Kalapatina mining area to become Australia's third largest mining giant.

Some people may be curious why a mining company has a futures investment department.

In fact, many mining companies are involved in futures investments - what they do is futures hedging.

To put it simply, if a mining company produces iron ore, then they buy a certain amount of short iron ore futures to combat the fluctuations in iron ore prices.

In this way, if the price of iron ore falls, although the iron ore spot they sell will be affected and their income will be reduced, they can be compensated for their short futures; vice versa, if the iron ore price rises, they will be short futures. The loss will be compensated in the spot iron ore.

It's just that the futures investment department of OZ Mining Company made a major mistake. It did not conduct reverse futures hedging strictly according to its own production. It went too far and caused huge losses.

Barron knows that the prices of raw materials such as iron ore will continue to rise for a long time in the future. After acquiring OZ Mining Company, there is no need to retain their futures investment department and directly entrust this business to DS Capital is fine.

With the participation of Stuart Mining Group, the problem of West African Mining Company's acquisition of OZ Mining Company was immediately solved.

The entire acquisition process is that West African Mining Company acquired OZ Mining Company for US$1.8 billion; then Stuart Mining Group issued an additional US$600 million worth of shares to West African Mining Company at the average price of nearly 30 trading days to acquire one of them. Prominent Hill copper-gold mine project.

After this, West Africa Mining Company acquired all the assets of OZ Mining Company except the Prominent Hill copper-gold mine project; while Stuart Mining Group acquired the Prominent Hill copper-gold mine project.

The current market value of Stuart Mining Group is around US$5.25 billion. After issuing an additional US$600 million worth of shares to West African Mining Company, West African Mining Company will hold approximately 10.26% of the shares of Stuart Mining Group, becoming second only to Butte The Bute family, the family's second largest shareholder, controls more than 36% of the shares in Stuart Mining Group through multiple companies.

In addition, it is worth mentioning that the original OZ Mining Company, after selling most of its assets, was able to take off again and become the third largest mining giant in Australia. In addition to the surprise discovery in the Kalapatina mining area, In addition, it is also due to the reforms carried out by their subsequent CEO on the entire OZ Mining Company.