Glencore adds US$8.2 billion in cash to offer for Teck

(Vancouver) Swiss miner Glencore has amended its unsolicited takeover bid for Teck Resources to include an $8.2 billion cash component.

Under the revised offer, Teck shareholders would receive 24% of the combination of the two companies’ metallurgical businesses, along with the cash.

Glencore’s initial proposal was all-equity and would have seen Glencore acquire Teck and then spin off the two companies’ metallurgical activities as well as parts of Glencore’s marketing activities into a single company. For their part, the coal activities of the two companies, and other related assets would have formed a separate entity.

Glencore acknowledged on Tuesday that some Teck investors may prefer a full exit from the coal sector and others may not want exposure to thermal coal.

“As a result, we are prepared, as an amendment to the proposed transaction, to introduce a cash element to buy back your shareholders’ exposure to coal,” Glencore CEO Gary Nagle wrote in a letter. to the Teck Board of Directors.

Teck had rejected Glencore’s initial unsolicited offer in favor of its own plan, announced in February, which would see its metallurgical and coal businesses split into two separate businesses.

The Vancouver-based miner argued its plan would give shareholders more choice and ways to maximize value, as they would own shares in both Teck Metals and new coal company Elk Valley Resources.

Teck is controlled by the Keevil family, which owns the company’s Class A shares along with Japanese company Sumitomo.

Norman B. Keevil, chairman emeritus of Teck, told the Globe and Mail daily that he had no interest in seeing Teck sold to Glencore.

Company in this story: (TSX: TECK.B)