China's Minmetals Resources offers to buy Anvil Mining for $1.28 billion

China's zinc producer Minmetals Resources Ltd yesterday said that it would buy Africa focused copper miner Anvil Mining for $1.28 billion, its second attempt this year to buy a Canadian company.

Hong Kong-listed Minmetals, a unit of Chinese state-owned China Minmetals Corp and the country's largest diversified metals trading company, has made an $8 per share all-cash friendly offer, a premium of nearly 40-per cent to Anvil's yesterday closing price of $5.77 on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

"The Anvil board has unanimously determined that the offer is in the best interests of Anvil and the Anvil shareholders, and has recommended that Anvil shareholders accept the offer," Minmetals said in the statement.

The proposed offer by Minmetals comes six months after its unsolicited $6.3-billion offer for Toronto-based Equinox Minerals Ltd was outbid with an extra $1 billion by Barrick Gold Corp, the world's largest gold producer. 

The friendly takeover of Anvil would require the approval of its 39-per cent shareholder, Trafigura Beheer BV, the world's second-largest metals trader behind Glencore of Switzerland.

Perth-based and listed on the Toronto stock exchange, Anvil Mining holds the Kinsevere deposit located in the Katangan Copperbelt in the Democratic Republic of Congo and has been producing copper since 2002.