The raffling of Rio Tinto continues.
Friday the company and its CEO, Tom Albanese were letting it be known they could be interested in talking to its maybe suitor, BHP Billiton.
But it would have been nothing firm, really, just an indication.
Perhaps a chat to see if space could be found in each other's diaries for sometime this month, perhaps this week?
Mr Albanese put a limit on his seeming openness: BHP had to offer the right price and the suggested three BHP for every one Rio shares offer was not the right price.
As he said on ABC TV yesterday, the BHP price was 'several ballparks away." Being an American, that's an understandable metaphor, but in terms of informing shareholders and the market it's meaningless because all Rio wants BHP to do is formalise its bid into an actual offer.
That would limit BHP's options and Rio's in its defence. At the moment it can keep BHP at bay and try and force the market to convince BHP to sweeten the proposed offer.
And that's what BHP has so far been very reluctant to do.
BHP finished a two day board meeting in Melbourne on Friday with no statement, so there's no movement ahead, unless it's leaked by the usual 'Chinese whispers'.
If BHP bids it won't want to do anything until late January-early February when it will be in a position to discuss its 2007-08 first half earnings performance and outlook.
The shares in both companies had a good day Friday in Australia as the world copper price rose. BHP added 98c to $42.98 and Rio jumped $US5.94 to $US145.19.
Helping was the feeling from the US that the Fed will cut rates next week for the third time in a row and improve the chances of BHP and its banks getting their $US70 billion loan funded next year.
On Saturday Mr Albanese was gone, jetting back to head office of the company in London where 63% of the company's shareholders are holders of Rio shares.
He did talk to the ABC's Inside Business and indicated a bit more formally, that the 'several ballparks' was more than the $US150 billion merger proposal put forward by BHP.
Mr Albanese repeated that the market was indicating that Rio Tinto was worth more than BHP Billiton's all scrip proposal.
"We've seen the market move well past the BHP proposal, which we rejected, and the market to some extent is speaking, it's basically saying that, 'yes, we agree its worth a lot more'," Mr Albanese told ABC television.
Mr Albanese brushed off suggestions there was a general consensus that putting the two companies together was a good idea.
"I'm not sure that I would call it a consensus and the reason I wouldn't call it a consensus is that the value of the pipeline that we've talked about, tripling the iron ore business is vastly more valuable than the synergies they have imported," Mr Albanese said.
"There are synergies, most of the synergies come from the Rio Tinto side of the ledger and the proposal we received didn't recognise that so it was a pretty easy decision to just say no."
A merger would create a world dominant player in coal, iron ore, copper, aluminium and coal, with annual earnings in the region of $US30 billion ($A34.09 billion).
Vocal opposition to the merger has emerged from steel mills and lobby groups in Europe, Japan, South Korea and China.
However, the world's sixth largest steelmaker, Tata Steel Ltd of India, has backed the proposed merger, saying it was time for the industry to consolidate.
On Friday BHP appointed Geoff Walsh, the former federal secretary of the ALP and a key ALP figure for the past 25 years. He will be global communications coordinator with a special interest in Australia where he will oversee Government relations.
He has been employed to deal with the new Rudd Government. Walsh most recently worked for the Bracks Government in Victoria and was consult general in Hong Kong, just like another former Australian federal ALP Secretary, David Coombe, who went on to work for Southcorp.
Primary Health Care's latest attempt to finesse its offer for Symbion has been rejected, maintaining the stalemate.
Primary said Friday that it would declare its $4.10 per share offer for Symbion Health Ltd unconditional if it receives at least 50.1 % acceptances by December 10 and CEO, Ed Bateman said his company's cash offer was at an attractive premium to the top end of the independent Expert's valuation range for Symbion of $3.52 to $3.91 per share.
"Symbion shareholders now have the real opportunity to receive a highly attractive cash offer in an accelerated time frame," Dr Bateman said in a statement on Friday, only a couple hours before Symbion's AGM, where Primary and Mr Bateman got short shrift for being too clever by half.
Primary paid up to $4.18 for Symbion shares during the buying binge earlier this year that saw PRY accumulate a 20% stake in SYB.
Primary is due to issue a formal offer today when the when the six month rule, which would force him to pay $4.18, runs out.
Rival Healthscope has taken a stake of almost 10 % in Symbion after a revised proposal by Healthscope to acquire Symbion's diagnostics assets collapsed.
Primary's bidders statement will be sent to Symbion shareholders on or about December 4 and its offer is scheduled to close on January 7 next year, unless its is extended or withdrawn.
Symbion chairman Paul McClintock said the tweaked offer from Primary was no more attractive.
He was quoted as saying in the weekend press that "The board made it clear that our view that $4.10 was inadequate was not just related to the conditions, but also we believed the price was not the price that we thought the company should be traded at"
Mr McClintock said the uns
