All eyes will be on Canada’s mining sector in 2011, New-York based research firm Bedford Financial said Thursday.
Mergers and acquisitions activity has been heating up in the resource rich country, especially in the mining sector, it said.
Canada has been home to close to half of the world’s M&Aactivity this year, a recent KPMG report pointed out. And that’swithout BHP Billiton’s $39-billion attempt to takeover Potash Corp. ofSaskatchewan.
The total value of M&As in Canada rose more than 40% to $48billion in the third quarter and there’s no sign things are slowingdown any time soon.
“Nearly 60% of those mega-deals were cross border transactions --signaling a trend in international interest,” the Bedford report said.
And nearly three-quarters of all Canadian mining companies expect tobe involved in some M&A activity in 2011, according to a recentKPMG poll.
However, the government’s comments in the Potash “debacle” may have scared off some foreign investors, the report said.
Prices for copper, zinc, nickel and aluminum have all soared inrecent months due mostly to rising demand from China making miners inthese areas potential takeover targets.
Companies such as Baja Mining Corp. and Lundin Mining Corp. couldoffer significant returns to investors in the event of a takeover, theindependent report said.
Source: https://www.torontosun.com/money/2010/12/02/16402991.html