MELBOURNE (Reuters) - If BHP Billiton's new chief executive Marius Kloppers eventually walks away from his bold proposal to buy rival mining titan Rio Tinto, and that's a big if, it won't be for lack of trying.
By James Regan
MELBOURNE (Reuters) - If BHP Billiton's new chief executive Marius Kloppers eventually walks away from his bold proposal to buy rival mining titan Rio Tinto, and that's a big if, it won't be for lack of trying.
Little more than two months after rising to the top job at BHP <BHP.AX> <BLT.L>, Kloppers, 45, a sideburned South African who refuses to eat meat, has made it clear he wants to make the world's biggest mining house even bigger in time to catch the booming trade in world commodities markets.
Rio <RIO.AX> <RIO.L> has so far resisted an informal $139 billion all-share offer from BHP, playing up its independent growth prospects amid renewed speculation of a higher counter bid from the Chinese.
!ADVERTISEMENT!British regulators have given BHP a February 6 deadline to make a formal bid or walk away from what would currently be the second biggest corporate takeover in history after Vodafone's $203 billion buy of Mannesman in 2000.
Kloppers has put together a team which code-named the Rio plan 'De Bello', a reference to Caesar's hard-fought victory over heroic Gallic leader Vercingetorix in 52 BC.
Like Caesar, who eventually had Vercingetorix strangled, Kloppers is undeterred.
"There is no sense of urgency on this side," he told reporters on December 12.
Mining mega-mergers are not new to Kloppers, a management consultant who joined Billiton in 1993.
He was a core member of a team that patched together the group's aluminum business. That could help explain his timing in pitching the offer for Rio, which was close to completing its own acquisition of Canadian aluminum maker Alcan at the time.
In addition to mentioning a love of Bob Dylan songs, his biography also says he played a central role in BHP's 2001 marriage with Billiton, once part of Royal Dutch Shell.
Well-liked by his staff, he is notorious for abhorring desk clutter, though a spokeswoman denies claims that pictures of sweethearts and families are forbidden in the workplace. Kloppers was unavailable for an interview over the holiday period.
Last month, Kloppers whistled-stopped the world imploring shareholders and even customers to support BHP's Rio bid.
The takeover offer has unnerved steel makers from Germany to China who buy hundreds of millions of tonnes of iron ore from both companies, and raised eyebrows of regulators in dozens of countries fearing an anti-competitive nightmare.
In his wake, Kloppers has left many investors wondering if he might pepper the offer with a cash sweetener. Analysts polled by Reuters in November expected BHP may boost its offer by a fifth.
A BHP-Rio Tinto marriage has long been whispered, but it took Kloppers to muster the nerve to pop the question.
Rio has branded the idea 'out of the ballpark' and 'dead in the water'. But Kloppers insists it is missing the point.
"It is about unlocking material value that would otherwise be lost," he said.
(Reporting by Jim Regan; Editing by Kim Coghill)
