Rio Tinto lifts North bid to A$4.75 and declares Offer unconditional.Business Editors LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--August 2, 2000 Rio Tinto Rio Tinto may refer to:
See: New York Stock Exchange : RTP (1) (Rapid Transport Protocol) The protocol used in IBM's High Performance Routing (HPR) system. (2) (Realtime Transport Protocol) An IP protocol that supports real time transmission of voice and video. ) announces a significant increase in its Offer for North Limited to A$4.75 per share. Rio Tinto has also declared the Offer unconditional HEIR, UNCONDITIONAL. A term used in the civil law, adopted by the Civil Code of Louisiana. Unconditional heirs are those who inherit without any reservation, or without making an inventory, whether their acceptance be express or tacit. Civ. Code of Lo. art. 878. UNCONDITIONAL. and will shorten (audio, compression) Shorten - A form of lossless audio compression. payment terms. Rio Tinto intends to pay accepting shareholders within three business days of valid acceptances being received. The Offer is due to close at 7.30pm Australian Eastern Standard Time on Monday, 14 August 2000. The Offer of A$4.75 represents a 62 per cent premium over the price at which North shares were trading on the day prior to Rio Tinto announcing its first Offer and is well within the valuation range assessed by North's independent expert, Grant Samuel. Accordingly, Rio Tinto expects to receive the endorsement of the North Directors. The increased Offer follows a detailed review of North's Target Statement, which included discussions with North executives. "This Offer represents an attractive price for North's shareholders and is value enhancing for Rio Tinto shareholders," said Rio Tinto Chairman Sir Robert Wilson Robert Wilson may refer to:
"The long-term interest of both producers and customers is best served by an efficient industry. Consistent with this, our bid for North is motivated by the opportunity to pursue capital and operating cost synergies Cost Synergy In the context of mergers, cost synergy is the savings in operating costs expected after two companies, who compliment each other's strengths, join. Notes: The savings in operating costs usually come in the form of laying off employees. . "The availability of synergies unique to Rio Tinto make us the logical acquirer of North. "There have been suggestions that the Japanese joint venture partners in Robe River would frustrate Rio Tinto's ability to achieve the synergies relating to relating to relate prep → concernant relating to relate prep → bezüglich +gen, mit Bezug auf +acc the railway. While this is a possibility, it would be to the disadvantage of supplier and customer alike, and we believe that the economic merits of our proposal will be recognised. "The intervention of Anglo American with support from some customers has raised the wider concern of industry destabilisation Noun 1. destabilisation - the action of destabilizing; making something less stable (especially of a government or country or economy) destabilization through the long-term creation of excess capacity. We believe the revised bid is important for the sustained performance of our business," said Sir Robert. Rio Tinto's Offer of A$4.75 represents a significant increase over the Anglo American offer of A$4.20 per share plus a five cent dividend to be paid by North. Anglo's offer documentation has not been lodged and its offer is not yet open for acceptance. Anglo's offer is also subject to a number of conditions, including approval from the Foreign Investment Review Board. Rio Tinto's Notice of Variation is being dispatched to North shareholders. North shareholders may accept the Offer by using either the acceptance form sent out with Rio Tinto's earlier Offer or by using the additional acceptance form being sent to shareholders. Shareholders who have already accepted the earlier Offer do not have to do anything, as they will receive automatically the higher price. Details of the revised Offer and how to accept it are available on the Rio Tinto website at www.riotinto.com. |
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