On Thursday, June 4, Australian largest mining company Rio Tinto Group announced that it was pursuing a range of options to improve its capital position, lending weight on to press speculations regarding the $19.5 billion deal with China's Aluminum Corp. of China (Chinalco) could be about to collapse.
According to a brief statement released by Rio Tinto, some of its options are at an advanced stage. However, the company didn't make any specific comment about the Chinalco deal.
A part of speculations were claiming that Chinalco could walk away after the parties couldn't reach an agreement on the terms of a $7.2 billion convertible bond that was a key part of the deal, while some were arguing that Rio Tinto might be the one to scrap the plan since the group's board is scheduled to meet in London later Thursday to discuss a $195 million breakup fee that it would have to pay to Chinalco if the deal doesn't go ahead.
According to the deal between the companies, Chinalco was expected to pay $12.3 billion for minority stakes in a suite of Rio Tinto's iron ore, copper and aluminum assets, and also buy $7.2 billion in convertible bonds that could increase its stake to 18 percent from around 9 percent.
Chinalco deal was going to help Rio Tinto to repay $39 billion of debt.
Rio Tinto said, "A further announcement will be made in due course."