Just one more hurdle faces Grupo Mexico, before it’s allowed to take over one of the world’s biggest copper companies, the bankrupted Asarco.
There’s still a prospect that Vedanta Resources will pip the Mexican miner to the post when a US district judge shortly takes a final decision in the bidding battle.
Last week, the UK-listed company raised its bidding price to US$2.57 billion – raising the possibility that Grupo Mexico will also increase its offer from a current US$2.48 billion. If successful, Grupo Mexico would wipe out a huge US legal liability, relating to its cynical takeover of Asarco’s subsidiary, Southern Copper, seven years ago. Southern Copper’s Peruvian mines are at least as important to the Mexicans as Asarco’s other assets.
Should Vedanta defy the pundits, it would be well on the way to achieving executive chairman, Anil Agarwal’s, ambition of becoming one of the world’s five biggest mining outfits.
Read more at http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=9473.