Market responds to Phelps Dodge’s acquisition plans
By Tom Stundza -- Purchasing, 7/5/2006 2:00:00 AM
Two Canadian mining gurus said U.S. copper miner Phelps Dodge Corp.'s $40-billion offer to acquire Inco and Falconbridge would have no net benefit to Canada. Peter Munk, chairman of Barrick Gold, which recently became the world's largest gold producer with a $10-billion takeover of Placer Dome, says the offer by Phoenix-based Phelps Dodge for the two Toronto-based nickel companies “is absolutely against Canada's interests." And Norman Keevil is put out because his Vancouver-based Teck Cominco, the world's biggest zinc producer, has an $18-billion hostile offer on the table for Inco. Keevil says Inco’s CEO Scott Hand, “has sold Canada out for his own purposes.'' Hand initially proposed to take over Falconbridge to create the world's biggest nickel miner. He was forced to turn to Phelps Dodge to help finance a higher bid after Xstrata of Zug, Switzerland, topped Inco's offer with a cash bid for the 80% of Falconbridge it doesn't own. “I'm sorry Norm Keevil feels the way he does,” Hand said in a recent statement. “I will do what is best for shareholders and I have real concern for the people of Inco, who work in Canada and around the world.” (Hand is a U.S. citizen, born in San Francisco; so is Weevil, a native of Cambridge, Mass.)
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