China Minmetals makes $1.7 bln bid for Oz Minerals

Chinese metals and minerals trader and producer China Minmetals Nonferrous Metals Co. has offered to buy debt-laden Australian miner Oz Minerals for 2.6 billion Australian dollars ($1.7 billion), the companies said Monday.

Coming just days after Aluminum Corp. of China said it will invest $19.5 billion in Rio Tinto Group, easing the Anglo-Australian miner's heavy debt burden, the offer underscores China's determination to clinch access to offshore mining resources.

Despite its own economic troubles, Beijing is finding the global downturn an apt opportunity for its cash-rich state companies to snap up foreign energy and resource companies at bargain prices.

Oz Minerals' board recommended that shareholders accept the cash offer, which values its shares at Australian 82.5 cents (53.5 U.S. cents) apiece, a 50 percent premium to their last traded price, according to a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange.

"The board has determined that Minmetals' cash proposal is in the best interests of Oz Minerals' shareholders and believes this is the best outcome for shareholders compared with any of the other options available to us," its chairman, Barry Cusack, said in a statement.

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