Rio Tinto soars after rejecting $142bn BHP approach

By Nick Clark

Published: 09 November 2007

 

BHP Billiton is expected to return with an improved offer for Rio Tinto after the UK-based mining giant rejected a $142bn all-share approach that would create one of the largest companies in the world.

BHP, which has its headquarters in Melbourne, revealed yesterday it had approached the Rio board in the past two weeks outlining a “potential combination with Rio Tinto on terms incorporating a premium”.

Rumours of the “mega merger” between the world’s first and third largest mining groups have repeatedly circulated the market this year and BHP confirmed yesterday in a regulatory statement that it had made an indicative bid.

Shares in Rio Tinto, which is listed in London and Australia, leapt 21 per cent to a record 5,296p, valuing the company at $144bn last night. BHP shares fell 5.6 per cent to 1,656p.

Read more

BURSON-MARSTELLER: PR FOR THE NEW WORLD ORDER

This PR firm has a office in Auckland, and owns the PR group Acumen with offices in Auckland and Wellington. They have done projects for Comalco and Rio Tinto. It is very likely that they will be hired to push for Seabed mining consents and other mining projects in NZ.
Considering the fact that this firm was the firm that brought Bush /Cheney to power, realise that this is the PR firm from hell.

By: Carmelo Ruiz

The public relations (PR) business is one of the fastest growing industries in the global market economy. In order to face perils like labor unions, organized consumer activists and environmental groups, governments and corporations have come to rely more on slick PR campaigns. The peril to popular democracy posed by PR firms should not be underestimated. Using the latest communications technologies and polling techniques, as well as an array of high-level political connections, PR flacks routinely “manage” issues for government and corporate clients and “package” them for public consumption. The result is a “democracy” in which citizens are turned into passive receptacles of “disinfotainment” and “advertorials” and in which critics of the status quo are defined as ignorant meddlers and/or dangerous outsiders.

Burson-Marsteller (B-M) is the world’s largest PR firm, with 63 offices in 32 countries and almost $200 million in income in 1994. Although its name is unknown to most people– even to many in activist circles– B-M is fast becoming an increasingly important cog in the propaganda machine of the new world order.

Human Rights, Anyone?

Read more