Minmetals offers $6.5b for Equinox to feed

MELBOURNE, April 4 (Reuters): Minmetals Resources, China's biggest metals trading firm, Monday offered $6.5 billion to buy Equinox Minerals, chasing the target company's copper assets in Zambia and Saudi Arabia. China, which accounts for 40 per cent of the world's demand for copper, is on a mining acquisition spree as prices for the red metal hover near record highs. Minmetals, which owns mining operations in Australia and Asia, said it would offer C$7 per share for Equinox, a 23-per cent premium to Equinox's close in Toronto last Friday of C$5.71. It would be China's fourth-biggest outbound M&A deal, according to data. Equinox's Australian shares surged 29 per cent to a record A$7.35, topping the value of the Minmetals' offer on expectations a rival bid may emerge. "It's game on now," said Ausbil Dexia Chief Executive Paul Xiradis, a shareholder in Equinox. "They'll be looking to defend their turf and it may entice another party to come in as well, looking for quality assets such as those held by Equinox." Minmetals' shares rose 2.4 per cent to HK$6.72. Chief Executive Andrew Michelmore told the reporter that the Equinox offer was Minmetals' best price, adding he was not considering increasing it. "It fits into a strategy of building a leading international diversified base metals upstream business," he later told a media conference in Hong Kong. "It certainly fits in with the strategy in terms of growing the base metal size, particularly in terms of copper," said Michelmore, adding Minmetals would be the world's 14th largest copper producer after the deal, from its current rank of 30th. The offer is conditional on Equinox dropping its C$4.7 billion bid for Canada's Lundin Mining, which has been the subject of a separate takeover tussle between Equinox and Inmet Mining.