Following dated Aug 29/12 from Wall St. Morning Newsletter by Paul Ausick:
"Glencore’s offer is for 2.8 shares of Glencore stock for each share of Xstrata. The Qataris want 3.25 shares of Glencore for each Xstrata share. Glencore’s CEO has said the original offer stands:
If it does not happen Sept 7/12— no big deal. It is not the only deal that can be done.
He was right about that. Glencore paid $6.2 billion for Canadian grain-handling firm Viterra in March 2012.
Huge, game-changing deals in mining are hard to pull off. BHP Billiton PLC (NYSE: BHP) failed in an attempted $140 billion acquisition of Rio Tinto PLC (NYSE: RIO) and failed a second time in a $39 billion offer for Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan (NYSE: POT). To mining companies, mergers and acquisitions are like losing — big egos can’t stand the shame of being acquired.
Both Glencore and Xstrata management support the deal. And why not? The Xstrata team stands to split a retention bonus of about $274 million if the deal goes through. If Glencore walks away before the deal goes to a shareholder vote, the company will pay a breakup fee of about $475 million. That’s right, Xstrata does not pay the breakup fee, Glencore does. Go figure.
If the deal with Xstrata fails, it will have cost shareholders $475 million. Glencore’s management team will still own 83% of the company and is unlikely to be kicked out or otherwise censured. Just another bad hair day in the mining business."
The above suggests that all the ROF owners & shareholders may be much better served with a KWG/DDI/CCC CLF Cnd/ON/ROF FN Fast-TrackTRUCE