The US coal producer has named Dr Julian Thornton as Macarthur’s new chief executive officer, replacing Macarthur’s managing director Nicole Hollows.
Previously the MD of Peabody Energy Australia, Thornton will bring more than 25 years of international engineering, operations and management experience to his new role at Macarthur.
A graduate of the University of Wales in Cardiff, Thornton has extensive experience in managing underground mines in central Europe.
Included in Peabody’s board reshuffling of Macarthur is the appointment of Peabody Energy executive vice president and chief operating officer Eric Ford, who joins the Macarthur board as its chairman.
Ford has been responsible for Peabody Energy’s global operations and also served as CEO for Anglo Coal Australia.
Following the new appointments, the Macarthur board has accepted the resignations of eight board members, including Keith DeLacy, Peter Forbes, Roger Marshall, Nicole Hollows and Chen Zeng.
Peabody Energy chairman Greg Boyce told an analysts’ briefing the Macarthur acquisition was valued very competitively, with comparable Australian transactions involving producing and development companies, either on the basis of enterprise value per ton of resource or earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation ratios.
“For Peabody, this transaction accomplishes a number of objectives,” he said.
“It creates synergies with our existing base, expands our Australian platform to serve high-growth regions, adds benchmark low-vol [pulverised coal injection] supply to our product mix, significantly expands our pipeline of growth opportunities and extends our resource base to provide years of future development projects.
“We are targeting the transaction to be accretive within a year.”
Mine Life senior resource analyst Gavin Wendt told ILN while the takeover offer price might rise to $16.25 a share if Peabody took more than a 90% stake in Macarthur, the current deal was a win for both companies.
“Peabody’s been after Macarthur Coal for some time. They got their price on a high quality asset with a lot of mine life ahead of it so it’s the ideal outcome for Peabody,” he said.
Wendt said Macarthur would benefit from Peabody’s stake in Macarthur due to Peabody’s huge capital.
“Peabody has a huge balance sheet so if Macarthur Coal requires any funding in terms of developing new projects or expansions, Peabody’s going to be able to provide that,” he said.
“Macarthur will just eventually get absorbed into Peabody … they have already assumed control of the board and you will basically have Peabody directors running Macarthur – it will just become a company within Peabody,” he said.
Peabody has a 65.7% stake in Macarthur after it accepted the $16-a-share bid and bidding partner ArcelorMittal decided to bail out of the PEAMCoal joint venture deal.
While takeovers and acquisitions have been rife in the Australian coal indsutry of late, Wendt said this particular deal represented the high interest in Australian coal assets.
“When the deal was announced it definitely generated interest,” he said.
“Although the market has probably deteriorated since the bid was announced, it definitely underlines the attraction of the Australian coal sector.”
