Australia-based Newcrest Mining has received a sweetened bid of A$32.87 ($21.9) per share from rival gold mining company Newmont for its takeover by the latter in a deal worth A$29.4bn ($19.5bn).
As per the revised conditional and non-binding proposal, shareholders of Newcrest Mining will exchange each of their shares in the company for 0.4 shares of the US-based Newmont.
Besides, the sweetened bid will allow Newcrest Mining to pay a franked special dividend of up to $1.1 per share.
The revised takeover offer represents an enterprise value of A$32bn ($21.34bn) for Newcrest Mining.
In the combined company, Newcrest Mining’s shareholders will hold a 31.1% stake.
According to the Australian miner, the revised proposal represents a premium of 46.4% to its closing price of A$22.45 ($14.9) per share on 3 February 2023.
Upon the assessment of the revised offer, Newcrest Mining has agreed to provide Newmont the opportunity to carry out confirmatory due diligence to allow the latter to come up with a binding proposal.
Newcrest Mining stated that due diligence will be completed within four weeks.
In February 2023, Newcrest Mining’s board unanimously decided to reject the $16.9bn takeover offer from Newmont on the basis that it did not represent enough value for the company’s shareholders.
Under the previous offer, Newmont proposed to exchange 0.38 of its shares for each Newcrest Mining share held.
At that time, Newcrest Mining’s board gave access to limited, non-public information on a non-exclusive basis to Newmont, allowing it to come up with an improved proposal that appropriately reflected the value of the Australian miner.
Newcrest Mining said there is no assurance that the improved takeover bid would result in a binding offer for consideration by shareholders.
