With less than one day left on the clock, advisers for BHP Group and Anglo American were still struggling to find a breakthrough to salvage BHP’s ambitious $49 billion takeover plan. BHP has until 17:00 London on Wednesday to commit to an offer, after Anglo agreed to extend a previous cutoff to allow for discussions. The two sides were getting closer on a value for a potential deal, Bloomberg reported last week, and BHP Chief Executive Officer Mike Henry has jetted into London for last-ditch meetings with investors ahead of the deadline. Yet, the key hurdle to any deal remains the same as it has for the past five weeks: BHP’s complicated transaction structure. Anglo argues that the requirement that it first spin off its majority stakes in two South African miners creates too much risk for its own investors who will end up holding those shares, and wants BHP to either change the structure or compensate its shareholders for any loss of value as a result of the spinoffs.
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