Wednesday 11 June 2014

A wrinkle on today's BHP Billiton story in the FT

Good story from James Wilson over at the Financial Times today on the front page of the newspaper's Companies and Markets section. James reports BHP Billiton is looking offload all of the assets that Billiton brought to the mining giant from the historic merger of both companies in 2001.

Here is the link to James Wilson's piece: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b7ba8126-f088-11e3-b112-00144feabdc0.html#slide0

I myself had been working on a story related to the FT piece although it is more of a wrinkle on James Wilson's story. I had picked up gossip that the shareholders in Samancor Holdings - a joint venture between BHP Billiton and Anglo American - were looking at their "strategic options".

According to Anglo American's website, BHP Billiton owns 60pc of Samancor and has management control while Anglo American owns the remaining 40pc of the business, which produces Manganese ore from assets in South Africa and Australia.

Excellent sources tell me that at least one of the shareholders in Samancor Holdings has been looking at selling out of the joint venture although people close Anglo American have previously tried to play down any exit.

So, I guess that implies BHP Billiton may be looking to sell out of Samancor Holdings?

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