On August 8, Australian miner Rio Tinto and Japan's Mitsubishi Corp. announced that they were seeking to buy out minority investors in Australia's Coal & Allied Industries with an offer of A$122 per share, according to media reports.
Rio Tinto and Mitsubishi, which together own 85.9 percent of Coal & Allied, holding 75.7 percent and 10.2 percent respectively, said they made their proposal at the weekend after securing the backing of Perpetual Limited, an institutional investor with a 6.3 percent holding whose support is crucial to the takeover's success.
Rio Tinto and Mitsubishi need 50.01 percent of minority investors to back the deal, which values Coal & Allied Industries at A$10.6 billion (US$10.768 billion), before it can be formally launched. Perpetual owns 45 percent of the minority shares.