Rio Tinto brushes Alcoa aside with 38 billion dollars bid for Alcan

摘要

Rio Tinto was able to claim a huge victory last week in the race to take pole position in the aluminium market as it made a massive 38.1 billion dollars all-cash friendly takeover bid for Alcan, leaving rival bidder Alcoa in its wake. Trumping Alcoa's bid by as much as 10 billion dollars and including a huge 1.05 billion dollars breakup fee, the bid was enough to force the US aluminium producer to withdraw from the race and was considered a large enough knock-out blow to keep other potential suitors at bay. This is not only the UK and Australian company's first major acquisition since the beginning of the commodities bull run, but the most audacious the industry has seen yet, marking the dawn of a new era for metals as the pace of consolidation reaches unprecedented levels.