Apr 17 2008
Rio Tinto has completed the sale of Kennecott Greens Creek Mining Company and Kennecott Juneau Mining Company, the subsidiaries holding its 70.3 per cent interest in the Greens Creek mine in Alaska to an affiliate of Hecla Mining Company, giving Hecla 100 per cent ownership.
The sale price includes cash consideration of US$700 million and US$50 million in Hecla stock. The transaction, which was announced on 12 February 2008, is part of Rio Tinto’s planned programme to divest at least US$15 billion of assets. Rio Tinto also recently completed the sale of its interest in the Cortez gold mine in Nevada for US$1.695 billion in cash along with certain retained contingent royalty interests. With the completion of both transactions, Rio Tinto has achieved close to one quarter of its target of realising asset sales of US$10 billion in 2008.
In November 2007, Rio Tinto announced the results of its overall strategic review of the company’s asset portfolio following its acquisition of Alcan. Options are also being explored to divest Rio Tinto Energy America (coal), Rio Tinto Minerals’ talc and borates businesses, Rio Tinto Alcan Packaging, Rio Tinto Alcan Engineered Products, Rio Tinto’s Northparkes copper mine in Australia and Rio Tinto’s Sweetwater (USA) and Kintyre (Australia) uranium assets.
Posted April 17th,2008