Swiss commodities giant Glencore has offered to buy the coal business of Teck Resources as an alternative to its hostile takeover bid which the Canadian miner has rejected so far.
Glencore said in a statement on Monday that it was not abandoning its original offer to merge with Teck and then split into separate metals and coal companies.
But the Swiss group, which is active in both commodity trading and mining, said it made an “alternative proposal” to buy Teck’s steelmaking coal business for cash. It did not specify a figure for the proposed deal.
Glencore originally offered to acquire all of Teck Resources for nearly $23 billion.
The Swiss firm added an $8.2 billion cash component in an effort to sweeten the deal, but Teck rejected it in April.
Teck confirmed that it was “engaging with Glencore around their proposal regarding the steelmaking coal business”.
“The proposal is preliminary in detail, conditional and non-binding,” it said in a statement.
But it added that it was “one of a number of proposals under consideration” related to the steelmaking coal business.
Agence France-Presse
