Managing The Dragon

Expect it to be a long one. A lot’s at stake. U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke may urge China to follow “due process” and communicate with the Australian government in the Rio Tinto case. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd may warn China that its foreign trading partners will be closely watching the outcome of the [...]

It was not a good day for China’s steelmakers. What BHP Billiton couldn’t accomplish in iron ore by buying all of Rio Tinto, it will now accomplish in a 50/50 mining joint venture between the two companies. As a result of its new agreement with BHP, Rio Tinto decided to scrap the proposed $19.5 billion [...]

Last week, China rendered its long awaited verdict: it blocked Coca-Cola’s bid to buy one of China’s largest juice companies for $2.4 billion on antitrust grounds. In case you haven’t been following the story, Coca-Cola made its offer to acquire China Huiyuan Juice Group Ltd. in early September 2008. Building upon the momentum it gained [...]

I don’t get it. Outside capital is nowhere to be found in any part of the world today. Because companies and private equity sources are on the sidelines, governments in Europe are injecting billions of euros into their domestic banking institutions, and the United States government is investing hundreds of billions of dollars into the [...]

When the economic history of China is written, it will show that, to date, there have been three major inflection points in the country’s economic development — events that have triggered major changes in the direction of the country. First, of course, was the opening of China to the outside world under Deng Xiaoping in [...]

Chinalco and China entered the big league of global mergers and acquisitions with the announcement today that Chinalco plans to invest $19.5 billion in Rio Tinto. The announcement confirmed rumors that have been in the market over the past several days that the two companies were discussing a possible deal. MTD has covered the Rio [...]

Not surprisingly, Chinalco and Rio Tinto are in discussions regarding the former taking a larger stake in the Australian mining company and purchasing minority stakes in some of its units. MTD has followed the Rio Tinto story over the past 18 months, and in our last article, Rio Tinto: Time For A Package Deal, I [...]

Last Tuesday, the 18-month saga of BHP’s battle for Rio Tinto ended. BHP withdrew its bid for the rival mining company, explaining that the recent fall in commodity prices and a worsening world economy had made the $68 billion deal too risky to complete. The proposed exchange of 3.4 shares of BHP for each share [...]