Norwegian aluminum producer Norsk Hydro ASA has signed a US$4.9 billion deal to buy the majority of Brazilian mining company Vale SA’s aluminum operations, officials said on Sunday.
Oslo-based Norsk Hydro said it would pay US$1.1 billion in cash for the operations and give Vale shares in Norsk Hydro representing 22 percent of the company.
Considering the shares’ value on Friday, the total value of the deal is US$4.9 billion, it said.
Vale is the world’s largest producer of iron ore and has more than 100,000 employees around the world.
The deal will give Norsk Hydro control of 60 percent of the world’s No. 3 bauxite mine, Paragominas in Brazil. It also has the right to take over the remaining 40 percent stake in two installments, in 2013 and 2015, for US$200 million each.
Norsk Hydro will also take control of 91 percent of alumina refinery Alunorte, 51 percent of the Albras aluminum plant and 81 percent of the CAP alumina refinery project.
As part of the deal, about 3,600 Vale employees will be transferred to Norsk Hydro, which already employs about 19,000 people in 40 countries.
Norsk Hydro’s president and chief executive Svein Richard Brandtzaeg said the deal was the “biggest transaction in Hydro’s history.”
“The acquisition in Brazil will secure raw materials for more than 100 years of aluminum production,” Brandtzaeg said in a statement. “This gives the entire company greater strength, makes us more robust. At the same time, we will be transformed from a company with its center in Europe to a leading global aluminum concern, with production and market positions in the Americas, Australia, Europe and the Middle East.”
The company said it would finance the acquisition by launching a fully underwritten rights issue of 10 billion Norwegian kroner (US$1.7 billion). The rights issue and the deal are supported by the Norwegian state, which currently owns 43.8 percent of Norsk Hydro shares.
After the deal, the Norwegian state’s share in Norsk Hydro will drop to 34.5 percent. Vale will get a seat on Norsk Hydro’s board of directors.
The transaction and the rights issue are subject to approval by the Norwegian parliament and a Norsk Hydro extraordinary general meeting, which will be held at the end of next month.
Norsk Hydro said it expects the transaction to be closed in the fourth quarter of this year.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats