Re: Teck Webcast
posted on
Jan 25, 2013 10:56AM
CUU own 25% Schaft Creek: proven/probable min. reserves/940.8m tonnes = 0.27% copper, 0.19 g/t gold, 0.018% moly and 1.72 g/t silver containing: 5.6b lbs copper, 5.8m ounces gold, 363.5m lbs moly and 51.7m ounces silver; (Recoverable CuEq 0.46%)
I think it should be pointed out that Teck said very similar comments in their Q2 2012 Conference Call, so I don't think we should get too excited about timing.
Don Lindsay: My first comment is that is an excellent question and very well phrased. And it goes to the heart of the discussions that we have here all the time. We're looking at capital allocations as one of it, if not the single most important thing that we do. And there is no question that from a market values point of view, the landscape is tilted towards buy versus build. Having said that, and we have teams that do a lot of work on this, we have reviewed all sorts of opportunities, including ones I'm sure you're watching that are getting cheaper. They may well get cheaper from here by the way. And the issue that you have to remember is that the assets themselves haven't changed. They may be valued in the market more cheaply, but they are still the same assets. And in many cases, those assets have something associated with them that make them not very interesting to us. It could be that there is short life, it could be they have significant environmental and sustainability issues. It could be that their geopolitical risk is bad and getting worse from a resource nationalism point of view, or from a health and safety and violence point of view. So those who are trading in the market don't have to deal with those issues, they can buy and sell and get out if things go seriously wrong, but we have to live with them for a long long time. And so as we go to build a company, we are very, very conscious of all these other more qualitative factors in trying to build a good strong company.
We always start with the resource base, and are there any significant risks to it. Is it long life, is it going to catch several cycles, during which we can get all of our capital back and earn a decent return. We look at labour laws. I could go on and on, a list of questions, but and then finally, even though the market price the current bid might be quite cheap, in quite a number of these companies, they are really controlled in terms of trying to buy them out by five or six shareholders who own perhaps 30%, and they won't sell for the normal takeover premium of 30%. They will want 60%, 70%, 80%, so in fact, the valuation that you can take it out for hasn't really dropped quite as much as it might appear. So I can assure you that I personally, and our Chairman and others on the team here are looking at that issue all the time. It is intriguing as this market unfolds, but at the moment, we haven't changed our plans.