BHP wins over Oz Minerals board with a revised $9.6bn takeover bid

Oz Minerals (ASX: OZL) boards plans to accept and recommend the revised $28.25 cash takeover bid from BHP (ASX: BHP).

The new bid is a 13.0% increase from BHP's original offer price of $25.00 per share and 49.3% premium to where Oz Minerals was trading before the initial bid on 5 August.

The Oz Minerals board considers the revised offer as being in the best interest of its shareholders and granted BHP four weeks to undertake exclusive due diligence to work towards a scheme implementation agreement. The four week period is expected to commence around Monday, 21 November.

“BHP’s Revised Proposal is a clear reflection of Oz Minerals’ unique set of highly strategic, quality assets in quality jurisdictions and an enviable multi-generational growth pipeline of copper and nickel assets in strong demand due to global electrification," said Oz Minerals Managing Director, Andrew Cole.

'Nice to have' secured

Oz Minerals operates two copper and gold mines in South Australia, both of which are located adjacent to BHP's Olympic Dam mining hub.

Oz Minerals is also seeking to progress its West Musgrave copper-nickel Project towards construction in 2023, which will now add a large greenfield nickel operation to BHP's WA assets.

It's worth noting that September, Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO) spent $4.9bn to take full ownership of Turquoise Hill Resources, the owner of the Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold mine in Mongolia.

While copper prices aren't running hot, M&A activity in this space is clearly gathering pace.

A widening supply gap

The spot prices of metals critical for the renewable energy transition such as copper and nickel have tapered off in recent months as global growth concerns and rising interest rates have outweighed falling supplies and looming shortages.

In July, Tribeca and Goldman Sachs estimated that the 2030 supply gap for copper would grow to 7.6m tonnes.

Source: Tribeca, Goldman Sachs

A more recent study by Goldman Sachs widened the gap to 8.1m tonnes.

A quiet copper scene

Without Oz Minerals, tumbleweed begins to roll around the ASX-listed copper scene.

This leaves just Sandfire Resources (ASX: SFR) and 29Metals (ASX: 29M) as the remaining more pure-play, large cap copper plays.

Oz Minerals share price chart