By Adriano Marchese
Shares in Turquoise Hill Resources Ltd. fell in premarket trading Monday after the mining company said Rio Tinto PLC’s takeover offer isn’t in its best interest.
Minority investor and partner Rio Tinto PLC made an all-cash offer to buy the shares it doesn’t hold in Turquoise Hill at a 32% premium to the last closing price before the offer was announced.
At 6:16 a.m ET, Turquoise Hill’s New York-traded shares were down 24% from its previous close of $26.25.
Turquoise Hill said a special committee it had established determined that the offer “does not fully and fairly reflect the fundamental and long-term strategic value of the company’s majority ownership of the Oyu Tolgoi project.”
Rio Tinto offered 34 Canadian dollars (US$26.57) for each share it doesn’t already own, valuing Turquoise Hill’s minority share capital at roughly US$2.7 billion.
Turquoise Hill is already 51%-owned by the U.K. mining giant and holds a 66% interest in the Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold mine in Mongolia.
The company said discussions between the two parties hasn’t led to consensus on value and price nor a better offer from Rio Tinto.
Write to Adriano Marchese at adriano.marchese@wsj.com
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