Rio's Chinalco deal under fresh fire

摘要

The 19.5 billion dollars 'bail out' of Rio Tinto by Chinalco has come under intense fire from its own shareholders at a hostile annual meeting in London this week. The intensity of the shareholder attack was sharpened by this week's 3.5 billion dollars bond raising in the US by Rio, which many shareholders took as a sign that the company is able to easily raise funds and thus does not need the Chinalco deal But departing Rio chairman, Paul Skinner, said the US bond raising did not signal any departure from the company's main course, but merely gave it 'a few more financial degrees of freedom.'