Atlas suitor drops out

MINERAL Resources has formally dropped out of the running for Atlas Iron, leaving only Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting and Andrew Forrest’s Fortescue Metals Group to fight over the junior iron ore miner.

Mineral Resources, led by Perth rich-lister Chris Ellison, yesterday confirmed it would not be making a counter-proposal to match the offer of 4.2c per share takeover bid from Hancock.

MinRes put Atlas into play in April by announcing an allscrip offer but recent weakness in MinRes’s share price meant the value of its original bid had fallen to just 2.8c per Atlas share.

The fate of Hancock’s offer will now rest in the hands of Fortescue, which already holds a 19.9 per cent stake in Atlas.