The Australian reported that copper and gold miner OZ Minerals is hopeful of expanding its limited portfolio of assets this year tipping targets to return to the market at a more reasonable value.

Mr Terry Burgess CEO of OZ Minerals defended the pace the company was targeting merger and acquisition opportunities saying the miner's strategy was to add value for shareholders.

Mr Burgess said that "I am pretty happy about the way we are doing things. I look forward to the day when I can stand up and announce a merger and acquisition activity but we want to make sure we add value and I think that's really going to be the thing. And if we are rushing into a deal just to do a deal, then I think that's when you start destroying value."

He said that the company's focus remained on copper assets in top producing regions around the world with the preference to find an asset that was targeting production in 2015 to 2016.

The market has been waiting for OZ to make a significant acquisition to expand the company, following China Minmetals' USD 1.3 billion purchase in 2008 of the rest of the group's assets apart from the Prominent Hill copper and gold mine in South Australia.

Mr Andrew Coles CFO of OZ Minerals said that the company expected to start seeing some assets that had gone off the table to return at a more realistic price this year. M&A still remains a very important part of the business and our growth objectives and we had that USD 750 million of cash that's marked for M&A opportunities. So we are quite hopeful that this year we will see some activity on M&A.

(Sourced from www.theaustralian.com.au)