Mark Cutifani, chief executive of Anglo American, created a buzz of takeover excitement in the mining world yesterday by telling the Wall Street Journal that "at the end of day, if somebody sees value, then there's a conversation to be had." The share price added 2.5%, a decent move for a £20bn company.
Investors should contain their excitement, however. Cutifani's remark was little more than a re-working of chief executives' usual bland formulation that all public companies are up for sale every day. It signifies nothing.
In any case, who are the bidders supposed to be? True, then-independent Xstrata made a cheeky merger proposal to Anglo in 2009. But those were different days. All the big miners, including Glencore, Xstrata's new owner, preach a gospel of capital discipline these days. That, surely, rules out offering a premium price for Anglo.
