Resources giant Rio Tinto PLC has revealed it rejected a potential merger with Glencore PLC in July, following a report the Swiss mining rival was in talks with major shareholder, the Aluminum Corp of China (Chinalco, 中國鋁業).
The Anglo-Australian firm also confirmed that there were no ongoing talks with Glencore about such a bid, which would have created the world’s largest mining firm, worth an estimated US$160 billion.
“In July 2014, Glencore contacted Rio Tinto regarding a potential merger of Rio Tinto and Glencore,” Rio said in a statement on Tuesday.
“The Rio Tinto board, after consultation with its financial and legal advisers, concluded unanimously that a combination was not in the best interests of Rio Tinto’s shareholders,” the statement said.
“The board’s rejection was communicated to Glencore in early August and there has been no further contact between the companies on this matter,” it added.
Glencore said its suggestion had taken the form of “an informal enquiry by telephone call to Rio Tinto, seeking to gauge whether there might be any interest at Rio Tinto in investigating some form of merger between the two companies.”
“Glencore confirms that it is no longer actively considering any possible merger transaction with, or offer for the shares of, Rio Tinto,” the company said in a statement.
The denial came after a Bloomberg report on Monday that Glencore had approached Rio shareholder Chinalco, China’s largest alumina producer, about whether it would be interested in a possible deal.
Rio Tinto is the world’s second largest miner and has a market capitalization of A$107.7 billion (US$94.4 billon), while Swiss commodities trader Glencore became the world’s fourth-biggest commodities company after merging with resources giant Xstrata in May last year.
Analysts have said a Glencore takeover of Rio would give it presence in the iron ore market, one commodity in which it does not have sizable operations.
Glencore reported a net profit of US$1.72 billion during the first half of the year, while Rio — supported by surging iron ore shipments — recorded a net profit of US$4.4 billion in the six months to June 30.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day