Zijin to buy Nevsun for $1.41bn cash

Bloomberg

Zijin Mining Group Co., a Chinese gold and base metals producer, agreed to buy Nevsun Resources Ltd. for $1.41 billion in cash, just days after winning a tender for a Serbian
copper miner.
The Fujian-based company will acquire all of the issued and outstanding shares of Nevsun for C$6 per share in cash, they said. The cash consideration represents a premium of 57 percent over Nevsun’s closing price of C$3.82 on May 7, the day Lundin Mining Corp. first announced its intention to buy Nevsun.
Miners are scrambling to acquire copper reserves amid forecasts that supply of the metal used to make cables and wires will be tight in coming years on increasing demand for power generation and new energy vehicles. Zijin Mining won a tender to buy Serbia’s state-owned RTB Bor, offering to invest almost $1.5 billion in the country’s biggest mining and smelting company over six years, according to the energy and mining minister.
Companies are seeking copper assets as prices drop.
The metal has slumped almost 20 percent in London this year as a strengthening dollar, escalating trade disputes and emerging market turmoil have damped prospects for demand. Zijin Mining shares have lost 4.4 percent this year in Hong Kong.
The Zijin offer is C$1.25 per Nevsun share, or 26 percent, more than the C$4.75 per share hostile takeover bid for Nevsun launched by Lundin July 26,
according to the statement on Wednesday. It’s not subject to financing conditions.