China's Minmetals said Friday it expected its 1.21 billion dollar (850 million US) bid for OZ Minerals to be approved by shareholders at the debt-laden Australian miner.
Minmetals had to revise its original 2.6-billion-dollar offer for OZ Minerals after Canberra blocked it in March on national security grounds as it included a copper-gold mine located near a military rocket testing range.
But the new plan, which omitted certain assets including the Prominent Hill mine, received the Australian government's conditional go-ahead on Thursday and is now subject to a shareholder vote and regulatory approvals from Beijing.
"We expect OZ Minerals' shareholder meeting to pass the deal in mid-June and transactions should be done soon after that," Jiao Jian, a Beijing-based spokesman with the Chinese company, told AFP.
The conditions stipulate that Minmetals operates the acquired assets as a separate business headquartered in Australia, with a predominantly Australian management team, and it may retain only limited influence on price setting.
"The requirements do not go beyond the business boundary and we will be able to comply," Jiao said.
Minmetal's offer also excluded OZ Minerals' Martabe gold and silver project in North Sumatra of Indonesia.
OZ Minerals on Friday said it had agreed to sell the Indonesian project to Hong Kong-listed investment company China Sci-Tech for 211 million US dollars.
OZ Minerals, which had previously warned it faced receivership if the deal was knocked back, has previously said the revised Minmetals offer would erase its debt and leave it with 500 million dollars in cash.
State-owned Chinese corporations have made a number of bids for Australian mining assets in recent months, including a proposed 19.5-billion-US-dollar investment in mining giant Rio Tinto by Chinalco which is still under review.
Beijing's interest has sparked intense debate in Australia over whether to allow Chinese state-owned entities to increase their control over the country's resources.
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