July 05, 2008

BHPB bid for Rio – BHP could sell assets if it gets Rio

AAP reported that BHP Billiton could reportedly sell more than USD 50 billion of assets if it took over mining rival Rio Tinto.

Britain's Financial Times reported that Mr Marius Kloppers CEO of BHPB would sell many assets as a result of buying Rio, similar to when Australia's BHP merged with Billiton of South Africa in 2001.

Mr Kloppers was quoted as saying that "We've got a critical asset threshold on things like size and resource life. When you put these two companies together that threshold lifts. I wouldn't be surprised if we continue to work out assets at the same kind of levels as before."

Mr Kloppers added that smaller or non core assets in aluminum, copper and ferrous metals could be sold.
The news paper said that during the BHP Billiton merger about 15% of the combined assets were sold because they were in non core business or were too small.