25th May 2016 12:13
LONDON (Alliance News) - Three major firms are in the race to snap up Anglo American PLC's top two coal mines in Australia, including fellow mining major BHP Billiton PLC, The Australian reported on Tuesday.
Anglo American has placed its coal assets up for sale as it realigns its business to focus on copper, platinum and diamonds. The coal assets are some of the ones due to be offloaded this year as the miner severely downsizes its asset portfolio to raise cash to pay down debt.
The newspaper said private-equity firm X2 is the latest party to join BHP Billiton and US-based buyout firm Apollo in the race to snap up the two coal mines, Grosvenor and Moranbah, and said fellow London-listed firm Glencore PLC and Australian coal producer Yancoal also have been linked to a deal.
BHP and Apollo have already made the shortlist of potential buyers for the mines, according to The Australian, which cited unnamed sources.
Notably, X2 is run by Mich Davis, the former head of Xstrata, which merged with Glencore back in 2013.
Anglo American has stressed it will only sell the two major mines for the right price, and The Australian said a deal for both mines could be worth around AUD1.30 billion.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/dataroom/x2-joins-in-hunt-for-anglo-american-coalmines/news-story/658b492eb9b058e68b3343b985dc8988
Anglo American shares were down 0.8% to 603.40 pence per share on Wednesday afternoon, whilst BHP Billiton shares were up 1.0% to 825.00p and Glencore's down 1.1% to 128.26p.
By Joshua Warner; [email protected]; @JoshAlliance
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