Reuters reported that shares in Rio Tinto Plc held by US miner Alcoa Inc and China's Chinalco under a custodian agreement with a unit of the now defunct Lehman Brothers have been moved to a new custodian.

The collapse of Lehman Brothers in mid September sparked media reports of concerns that Alcoa and Chinalco, or Aluminum Corp of China, could face difficulties retrieving the shares, the purchase of which had been seen as a way to stymie BHP Billiton Limited's takeover bid for Rio.

Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper said in an article on October 16th 2008 that Chinalco had been trying to move the shares from the account in Hong Kong.

It may be noted that Chinalco teamed up with Alcoa in February 2008 to buy 12% of Rio's London shares for about USD 14 billion. Alcoa in October 2008 had expressed confidence the shares would be transferred.