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Bloomberg
Mitsubishi Corp., Japan’s biggest trading house, has hired Rothschild to sell its minority stake in an Australian thermal coal mine, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
Mitsubishi is sending preliminary information to potential buyers for its 31.4 percent holding in the Clermont mine in Queensland state,
according to the people. It will shortly seek expressions of interest, one of the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is private.
Glencore Plc and Sumitomo Corp. agreed in 2013 to pay Rio Tinto Group about $1 billion for 50.1 percent of Clermont, which was described at the time as Australia’s third-largest thermal coal mine. Australia’s Newcastle coal, an Asian thermal benchmark, surged more than 80 percent in 2016, snapping five years of declines. It is still down about 3 percent since before the deal was announced.
Mitsubishi said last year it will shift focus toward its non-resources businesses, which range from agricultural machinery to industrial finance and automobiles. The trading house is also studying an exit from another operation in Australia as part of Rio Tinto’s $2.45 billion agreement to sell its Hunter Valley mine stakes to Yanzhou Coal Mining Co.
There’s no certainty the deliberations will lead to a sale of the Clermont mine, which is operated by Glencore, the people said. Peter Grauer, the chairman of Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, is a senior independent non-executive director at Glencore.