China's Chalco abandons plan to buy stake in Winsway Coking Coal for $308 mn

29 Sep 2012

China's biggest aluminium producer, Aluminium Corp of China (Chalco) yesterday said that it will abandon plans to buy a 29.9-per cent stake in Mongolian coal exporter  Winsway Coking Coal as it would not be able to get approvals from Chinese and overseas regulators by the 30 September deadline.

This is the second deal the Beijing-based company is abandoning this month after it dropped its proposed $926-million bid for Mongolia-focused Turquoise Hill's stake in SouthGobi Resources following the Mongolian government's strong opposition to the transaction. (See: Chalco drops $926mn bid for SouthGobi Resources)

Turquoise Hill was formerly known as Ivanhoe Mines.

In April, Chalco had offered to buy a stake in Winsway, a supplier of Mongolian coking coal to the Chinese steel industry, for $308 million.

Hong Kong-listed Winsway is one of the leading suppliers of imported coking coal and particularly, one of the single largest offtaker of Mongolian coking coal into China.

Winsway is also one of the few companies that own key logistics and transportation infrastructures at the Sino-Mongolian border crossings, serving the entire Mongolian supply base.