Kaz Minerals soars 10pc after £3bn takeover bid
COPPER miner Kaz Minerals was the toast of the FTSE 250 after its two largest investors tabled a £3bn takeover offer.
Chairman Oleg Novachuk and director Vladimir Kim own 39pc of the company between them – and have proposed buying the remaining 61pc for 640p a share.
This is 12.5pc more than Kaz’s closing price before the offer.
Kaz, which owns two copper mines in Kazakhstan, has seen shares surge by more than 15pc this year as China’s rebound boosted copper prices.
The industrial metal is seen as a bellwether for the global economy and, despite the difficult Covid winter ahead, copper will likely be a winner when Western countries begin to recover.
Going private, then, might not be the obvious move.
But Novachuk said developing a £760m mine in eastern Russia it bought from Roman Abramovich in 2018 would ‘be best undertaken away from public markets as a private company’.
The Baimskaya copper mine is based in a remote area of Russia with little infrastructure – a factor that will drive up costs – and the company’s shares dropped by 27pc on the day of the announcement, as shocked shareholders rushed to the exit.
Kaz needs 75pc of votes cast at a one-off meeting in December or January to be in favour of the takeover for it to go through. Shares jumped 10pc, or 57.2p, to 628p.
The news of Kaz’s possible departure came as Canadian mining firm Wheaton Precious Metals joined the London Stock Exchange, in the biggest ever listing of a Canadian company.
The £17bn firm makes money from metal streaming contracts, which are similar to royalties. It opted for a standard listing, which means it can’t join the FTSE indexes. Shares began trading at 3700p, but fell to 3502.5p.
Aston Martin shares rose by as much as 17pc in early trading as investors cheered plans by Mercedes-Benz to build up a 20pc stake in the iconic British car maker by 2023.
Aston’s announcement was released after the market closed on Tuesday – so yesterday was the first time traders were able to react. On Tuesday Aston also said it would raise another £125m through selling new shares and last night Reuters reported it is eyeing an £840m junk bond sale.
Aston shares closed up 0.9pc, or 0.5p, at 55p.
But the rest of the market suffered as global Covid cases surged and France and Germany considered plans for nationwide lockdowns.
Just one FTSE 100 company stayed in the black, with Admiral rising 0.9pc, or 24p, to 2781p.
The index closed down 2.6pc, or 146.19 points, to 5582.8, while the
FTSE 250 fell 1.9pc, or 338.8 points, to 17,248.91.
Many of the worst-hit companies in the travel and leisure sectors were among the largest fallers.
Conference organiser Informa fell 5.3pc, or 23.5p, to 424p, Cineworld dived 6.9pc, or 1.79p, to 24.32p and pub group Wetherspoons dropped 5.6pc, or 51.5p, to 862.5p.
Cruise operator Carnival tumbled 7.6pc, or 69.4p, to 838.8p after it delayed the restart in cruises from Australia and New Zealand until the end of next May.
Closer to home, High Street retailer Shoe Zone fell 16.5pc, or 7.5p, to 38p, after warning it could close up to 90 stores by April 2022 if the Government does not shake up business rates. It expects a loss of up to £12m and said annual revenues dropped by more than £39m to £122.6m in the financial year that ended earlier this month as Covid hammered shop sales.
But boss Alistair Smith singled out business rates as a major obstacle to its success – saying a fifth of its 460 stores are now at risk because of the system.