The Potash Corp of Saskatchewan, the fertilizer producer, confirmed on Monday that it was seeking bids to counter an unsolicited US$38.6 billion offer from BHP Billiton, the Australian mining company.
William Doyle, chief executive of Potash, said in an interview that his company had entered preliminary talks with other companies some time ago in anticipation of a bid from BHP.
“We’re not starting from zero,” Doyle said. “We’ve had a tremendous outflow of people looking to do something with us.”
The announcement of negotiations followed the decision by the directors of Potash to reject the bid from BHP, which values the company at US$130 a share, for a second time.
As was the case when Potash first revealed the bid from BHP last week, Doyle dismissed it as an attempt to exploit a decline in shareholder value that was tied to the recession.
He declined, however, to specify what price could sway the Potash board.
Which companies Potash is in talks with, and what sort of arrangements were being discussed, remained unclear.
Speculation has focused on BHP’s two rivals in the mining community: Rio Tinto, which is also from Australia, and Vale, the Brazilian company that is a leading producer of iron ore. Since China is the world’s largest importer of potash, some analysts also say they believe that a Chinese state-owned company may bid for Potash.
However, Doyle suggested in the interview that a broader range of companies is at least having a look at Potash.
“You should not limit your imagination as to what sectors they are from,” he said.
Vale denied it was one of the companies.
“Rumors about a bid to acquire a fertilizer company or about negotiations with the purpose of making a bid to acquire such company are totally unfounded,” the company said in a regulatory filing.
A spokesman for BHP declined to comment.
The Philippines is working behind the scenes to enhance its defensive cooperation with Taiwan, the Washington Post said in a report published on Monday. “It would be hiding from the obvious to say that Taiwan’s security will not affect us,” Philippine Secretary of National Defense Gilbert Teodoro Jr told the paper in an interview on Thursday last week. Although there has been no formal change to the Philippines’ diplomatic stance on recognizing Taiwan, Manila is increasingly concerned about Chinese encroachment in the South China Sea, the report said. The number of Chinese vessels in the seas around the Philippines, as well as Chinese
URBAN COMBAT: FIM-92 Stinger shoulder-fired missiles from the US made a rare public appearance during early-morning drills simulating an invasion of the Taipei MRT The ongoing Han Kuang military exercises entered their sixth day yesterday, simulating repelling enemy landings in Penghu County, setting up fortifications in Tainan, laying mines in waters in Kaohsiung and conducting urban combat drills in Taipei. At 5am in Penghu — part of the exercise’s first combat zone — participating units responded to a simulated rapid enemy landing on beaches, combining infantry as well as armored personnel. First Combat Zone Commander Chen Chun-yuan (陳俊源) led the combined armed troops utilizing a variety of weapons systems. Wang Keng-sheng (王鏗勝), the commander in charge of the Penghu Defense Command’s mechanized battalion, said he would give
‘REALISTIC’ APPROACH: The ministry said all the exercises were scenario-based and unscripted to better prepare personnel for real threats and unexpected developments The army’s 21st Artillery Command conducted a short-range air defense drill in Taoyuan yesterday as part of the Han Kuang exercises, using the indigenous Sky Sword II (陸射劍二) missile system for the first time in the exercises. The armed forces have been conducting a series of live-fire and defense drills across multiple regions, simulating responses to a full-scale assault by Chinese forces, the Ministry of National Defense said. The Sky Sword II missile system was rapidly deployed and combat-ready within 15 minutes to defend Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport in a simulated attack, the ministry said. A three-person crew completed setup and
SHIFTING FOCUS: Investment in China fell due to increasing costs, the US-China trade war and China’s economic development slowdown, a spokesperson said The percentage of Taiwanese businesses investing in China has been steadily declining since 2010 due to increased costs, the US-China trade war and the slowdown of China’s economic development, Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) spokesperson Li Pao-wen (黎寶文) said. In terms of Taiwan’s total outward investment, the percentage of businesses investing in China has dropped from 83.8 percent in 2010 to 11.4 percent in 2023, 7.5 percent last year and 2.7 percent in the first quarter of this year, Li said in an exclusive interview with Liberty Times, the Taipei Times’ sister paper. Li said that 70 percent of these businesses experienced
RSS