China Minmetals submits revised bid for OZ Minerals

China's state-owned Minmetals has sent a revised offer to OZ Minerals after Australian regulators rejected the original bid this week on grounds of national security. (See: Australia rejects China's bid for OZ Minerals)

Without disclosing the value of the new bid, Minmetals submitted a revised offer today, which excluded Prominent Hill and other assets. Both companies said in a statement that the new offer would ''provide a complete solution to Oz Minerals refinancing issues.''

Some industry experts feel that the new offer would be worth about A$1.5 billion compared to Minimetals' earlier offer of A$2.6 billion for the entire company and its assets.

"OZ Minerals has received an alternative incomplete proposal from Minmetals which, when completed, will result in Minmetals acquiring all of OZ Minerals' assets except for Prominent Hill, Martabe, and the company's portfolio of listed assets, including Toro Energy Limited," the miner said in a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange.

This week, The Australian government had rejected Minmetals' $1.8-billion acquisition of the world's second-biggest zinc miner, the debt-ridden OZ Minerals on grounds of national security, citing the Prominent Hill mining operations were in close proximity to the Woomera weapons testing site.

The rejection had more political overtones than the reason put out by the Australian government of allowing a foreign entity to operate in close proximity to the Woomera defence rest site, since the Prominent Hill operations is located 162km away from Woomera, whereas BHP Billiton's operations is much closer to it.