BHP has moved on from Anglo American, company chairman says

By Melanie Burton

SYDNEY (Reuters) – BHP has moved on to focus on other growth opportunities after shareholders of Anglo American (JO:AGLJ) voted against its takeover approach earlier this year, the company’s chairman said on Wednesday.

The world’s biggest miner walked away from a $49 billion bid to acquire Anglo in May after it was rebuffed three times. The upcoming end to a six-month block on BHP making another approach had raised speculation a deal may again be under scrutiny.

“We made an approach to Anglo American earlier this year … we thought there was an opportunity here to create something unique and special, a bit of a sort of a one plus one equals three opportunity,” MacKenzie said at BHP’s annual meeting.

“Unfortunately, Anglo American shareholders had a different view, and they thought there was more value in the plan that their management wanted to execute. And so they moved on. And quite frankly, so have we.”

As evidence, MacKenzie pointed to BHP’s C$4.5 billion ($3.25 billion) deal with Canada-listed Lundin Mining (OTC:LUNMF) in July to jointly take over developer Filo Corp in a move to grow their copper holdings in South America.