South African goldmining producer Gold Fields Ltd. has asked South Africa's competition watchdog to block...
South African ?4 world goldmining producer Gold Fields Ltd. has asked South Africa's competition watchdog to block unsolicited takeover offer of Harmony Gold, calling it an "unlawful construct".
That Harmony?s bid, widely expected by the market, is seen as another attempt to fight off an unwanted approach that would create the gold industry's largest miner.
Gold Fields said in a statement, that it has submitted an application to the Competitions Tribunal to interdict the apparent unlawful implementation of the offer. The Company said its lawyers advise that Harmony's early settlement offer was an "unlawful construct designed to evade the jurisdiction of various regulatory authorities and is, in particular, a notifiable merger for the purposes of the Competition Act".
Harmony Gold Mining Co. Ltd., the world's sixth largest gold producer, launched an $8 billion all-share offer for Gold Fields last week.
The bid is in two stages: the first, an early settlement offer, sees Harmony offering to buy up to 34.9 percent of Gold Fields' shares by Nov. 26. It will use this stake plus a further 20 percent that it has sewn up to vote against a friendly merger deal that Gold Fields has in the works with Canada's Iamgold Corp. Once the rival transaction is voted down, Harmony plans to proceed to the second stage of its offer, which involves making a bid for the rest of Gold Fields.
