World’s biggest gold miner Newmont tables £14.1bn offer for rival firm Newcrest
Top gold producer Newmont Corp has made a £14.1bn ($16.9bn) offer for Australian peer Newcrest Mining to build a global gold behemoth.
If successful, the all-share deal would be the largest mining takeover and the third largest corporate buyout in Australian history, according to Refinitiv data.
Newmont, the world’s biggest gold producer by market value and ounces produced, described the combination as “a powerful value proposition”.
Newcrest said that it was considering the proposal.
The indicative offer implies a 21 per cent premium to Newcrest’s share price before the bid was announced, materially below the traditional 30 per cent takeover premium, which values Newcrest at about A$31 per share.
The Newmont proposal is via an agreed scheme of arrangement that would need to be recommended by the Newcrest board and subject to due diligence, various regulatory approvals and a shareholder vote that could stretch out for months.
Newmont shareholders would also have to approve the deal.
Its shareholders would receive 0.38 Newmont shares for every Newcrest share, giving them a 30 per cent stake in the enlarged miner.
It is a 4.7 per cent improvement from a previous offer that was rejected for not providing enough value, Newcrest disclosed on Monday.
Newcrest’s operations include its top class Cadia asset in Australia, an expanding footprint in North America and Papua New Guinea, and growth potential in copper, highly prized as key to the energy transition.
Reuters – Melanie Burton, Sameer Manekar and Scott Murdoch.