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Chinese metal firm buys stake in Lynas

(China Daily/Agencies)
Updated: 2009-05-02 07:14

A customer looks at a new iPod Nano at an Apple store in Salt Lake City, Utah. [Bloomberg News]

China Non-Ferrous Metal Mining Co agreed to pay A$252 million ($184 million) in cash for a majority stake in Lynas Corp, an Australian miner of minerals used in iPod music players and liquid crystal displays.

The State-owned company will buy 700 million new shares at 36 cents each, the Sydney-based company said on Friday in a statement.

The deal will secure Lynas a total of A$522 million in cash and loans to complete construction of plants in Australia and Malaysia to supply customers in North America, Japan and Europe. China may spend more than $500 billion on overseas resources investments over the next eight years, according to Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu.

"A lot of the Australian projects that have struggled to secure financing under normal means have had the Chinese come and help them," Hunter Hillcoat, a Sydney-based analyst at Austock Securities Ltd, said. "The project itself is fundamentally sound. With the company securing that financing, the key concern is removed."

The share sale needs approval from Australian and Chinese regulators, Lynas said.

China Non-Ferrous Metal will have a 51.6 percent of Lynas should the transaction be approved. The Chinese company will have four directors appointed to the board of Lynas, which suspended worth on its Rare Earths project in February due to lack of funding.

"This shall enable the company to lift the suspension of the project and complete construction and commissioning," the statement said.

Rare earths are also used in compact fluorescent light bulbs, hybrid cars and wind turbines.