Rio Tinto has signed an agreement to divest its 40% stake in the Bengalla coal mine in Australia to coal producer New Hope for A$865m ($606m).
Advertisement
New Hope Coal chief executive Shane Stephan told Fairfax Media last week that New Hope was prepared to pay for quality assets: “I think one should be very cautious with the term “bargain”.
“Bengalla mine is a robust, well-managed business with a productive workforce and we believe it will have a positive future under the new owner with different capital allocation priorities”.
Rio Tinto will hold the remaining 67.6% interest in the Hunter Valley Operations mine, interests of 80% and 55.6% respectively in the integrated Mount Thorley and Warkworth mines in the Hunter Valley, and 100% of the Mount Pleasant coal project with coal reserves of 474 million mt.
Rio Tinto and Mitsubishi Development have recently agreed a simplification to the ownership structure of Coal & Allied which helps enable this transaction.
Rio Tinto, advised by Deutsche Bank, has put all its coal stakes in the Australian state of New South Wales up for sale.
Rio’s shares are +1.9% in London.
Rio Tinto has been actively selling non-core operations and reshuffling its portfolio of assets to drive down debt amid a steep drop in the price of iron ore, which made up about 66% of underlying earnings in the resources giant’s first-half earnings.
The deal, which values the Bengalla mine at $US1.51 billion, will be seen as a win for Rio Tinto given it represents a premium to book value at a desperately bad time in the coal market.
Advertisement
The agreed sale of Bengalla is part of a change in ownership of Coal & Allied, a joint venture between Rio Tinto and Mitsubishi Development.
