Australia's TerraCom offers to buy rest of Universal Coal

Australia’s TerraCom offers to buy rest of Universal Coal

Monday, February 3rd, 2020

Australian coal miner TerraCom Ltd (TER.AX) offered to buy the remaining shares of Universal Coal PLC (UNV.AX) that it does not already own, in a deal that values the company at about A$175 million ($119.68 million).

Under the cash-and-stock deal, a Universal shareholder will get 10 cents in cash and about 0.6026 new TerraCom shares for each Universal share held.

The offer values each Universal share at 33.5 cents, a premium of 42.6% to Friday’s close.

TerraCom’s primary operating mine – Blair Athol – is in Queensland, while Universal’s top operations are in South Africa.

“The offer will allow both companies to continue to run successful coal operations with the improved benefit of geographic diversity and an expanded production footprint,” TerraCom said in a statement.

The deal comes at a time when Australia faces global ire for its policy of using old carbon credits to count toward future emission targets, which also emerged as a major sticking point in a U.N. climate summit in December.

Australia, which relies on coal-fired power making it one of the world’s largest carbon emitters per capita, approved a huge new coal mine by India’s Adani Enterprises (ADEL.NS) last year.

Shares of TerraCom were down about 1.6%, while Universal stock gained up to 12.8%, hitting an over three-month high.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-universal-coal-m-a-terracom/australias-terracom-offers-to-buy-rest-of-universal-coal-valuing-it-at-120-million-idUKKBN1ZX07F?rpc=401&