19th Mar 2014 08:57
LONDON (Alliance News) - A unit of China Minmetals Corp has for the first time admitted that it is in talks Glencore Xstrata PLC to acquire interest in the Las Bambas project in Peru, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.
However, while the newspaper reported on Monday that the two parties were meeting on Tuesday with an aim towards an agreement on the acquisition, a representative of Minmetals, the chief executive of its Hong Kong-listed unit MMG Ltd, said that an agreement had yet to be made.
?No binding agreement has been reached in connection with the acquisition,? MMG Chief Executive Andrew Michelmore said in a filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Wednesday, without further elaboration.
Glencore agreed to sell the Las Bambas property as part of the former Glencore International PLC's acquisition of Xstrata PLC in 2013.
The signing of a deal would end months of negotiations, which were pushed back beyond an internal March 4 deadline, as Glencore and Minmetals struggled to reach an agreement over the pricetag of Las Bambas.
Glencore could not immediately be contacted by Alliance News for comment Wednesday morning, but the company announced earlier in March that the disposal process of Las Bambas is ongoing and it is committed to be completed by September 30.
Glencore shares were down 1.6% to 306.45 pence, putting it in the top five FTSE 100 fallers in early trading Wednesday.
http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/03/19/china-minmetals-unit-confirms-in-talks-with-glencore/
By Tom McIvor; [email protected]; @TomMcIvor1
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