Meta-report on Potash takeover

Felix Salmon pulls together what he likes to call a report report report on the Conference Board of Canada's report on various Potash Corp takeover scenarios, and the media's coverage thereof. The punch line is that

A successful takeover of Saskatoon-based Potash Corp could slash the province’s revenues by at least $2 billion over the next decade while having little or no net effect on employment, according to a report commissioned by the province.

... but a takeover by Sinochem would be far worse, with potentially foregone tax revenues of more than $10 billion over the next ten years.

Potash Corp's CEO has been doing a lot of talking, but I find it impossible to believe that a Sinochem bid could ever be politically feasible, so unless another multi-national bidder emerges, he won't be independent for much longer. That said, the market is still trading higher than BHP's $130/share offer price so a critical mass of people does seem to believe someone else - or another higher bid from BHP - is still out there.

M&A round-up

I've been out of the office for a week so am reviewing the news. There are three resources M&A stories I found particularly noteworthy:

Sinochem approaches Australian agro-chemical producer Nufarm: With all sorts of M&A and other goings-on around China's quest to secure resources, this multi-billion dollar deal will be worth watching. A joint bid by ChemChina and Blackstone for Nufarm didn't pan out in 2007 - I'd be curious to know why, and if it sheds any light on how this attempt will pan out.

Exelon drops its bid for NRG: This was a long-running saga; Exelon does the right thing by not upping its bid further into value-destroying ranges, but now it may miss even more the federal loan guarantees for new nuclear plants that NRG got and it didn't.

The Suncor/Petro-Canada merger receives anti-trust approval: The way is cleared for the new Canadian national champion in petroleum, and probably not the last consolidating move we'll see in the sector.