Hedge funds eye debt-hit miners
Hedge funds are likely to trawl the resources sector for loan-to-own deals as the capital squeeze on smaller miners and mining services companies throws up cheap opportunities, according to The Australian.
While US giants such as Oaktree Capital Management and Apollo Global Management have traditionally focused on sectors such as media and retail, law firm Gilbert + Tobin said hedge funds and distressed debt funds would increasingly eye miners.
Coalition's company tax cut canned
Economists have poured cold water on Tony Abbott's promise of a boost to national growth from a company tax cut, as he prepares to confirm a new levy on big business that would erode the gains, according to The Australian.
The warnings undercut the Coalition's economic argument and revive a dispute with business over a $3 billion annual levy to fund the Opposition Leader's paid parental leave scheme, expected to be announced within days.
Mongolia tells Rio to fund Oyu Tolgoi from cash flow
Mongolia’s minister of mining has called on the projected $US5 billion second stage of Rio Tinto’s Oyu Tolgoi copper mine to be financed from cash flow just weeks after the company’s efforts to gain approval for the next stage of financing were suppressed by the country’s government, according to the Australian Financial Review.
Rio completed the first phase of the Oyu Tolgoi open pit copper mine earlier this year and began shipping concentrate from the mine in July.
The second underground development phase of Oyu Tolgoi requires additional funding.
But Rio’s bid for that project financing was stifled at the end of July when the Mongolian government said the terms of the project financing arrangement would need to be cleared by the country’s parliament, which was in summer recess.
Rio, in response, said it would delay all funding and work on the underground development until it was determined if project financing for the underground project had to be approved by the Mongolian parliament.
Rio, meanwhile, will focus on the cost-effective management and ramp up of the open pit mine and export of concentrate.
