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Teck Resources’ Highland Valley Copper Mine near Logan Lake, B.C. British miner Anglo American announced plans to buy Teck in September.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
Anglo American PLC’s NGLOY US$20-billion acquisition of Canada’s Teck Resources Ltd. TECK-B-T has been approved by shareholders on both sides of the deal, removing a major hurdle to the transaction getting over the finish line.
Investors at London-based Anglo and Vancouver-based Teck met in separate meetings on Tuesday and voted decisively in favour of the transaction.
The nil-premium all-stock deal was announced in September.
Dating back to 1913, Teck is one of Canada’s biggest and oldest mining companies, with domestic and international operations in copper, zinc, lead and germanium. In British Columbia, Teck operates the Highland Valley copper mine and the Trail smelter.
Results from Teck’s meeting showed that 89.7 per cent of the company’s Class B shareholders voted in favour of the deal.
Anglo shareholders voted 99.2 per cent in favour.
Anglo shareholders also approved the change of the company’s name to Anglo Teck.
“This resoundingly positive vote marks an important milestone in creating Anglo Teck,” Teck chief executive officer Jonathan Price said in a statement on Tuesday.
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Anglo CEO Duncan Wanblad in a statement said the company is “delighted with the clear endorsement from our shareholders to take this next strategic step to unlock outstanding value.”
Receiving shareholder support at both companies removes a big impediment, but several layers of regulatory approvals are still needed before the deal can close. Anglo said that navigating all the red tape could take up to 18 months.
Industry Minister Mélanie Joly has the power to block the transaction if she doesn’t find it to be of net economic benefit to Canada.
Ms. Joly hasn’t given a clear timeline on when she will make her decision, but based on previous federal government reviews of mining transactions, her ruling might not come until next year.
Ottawa’s review of Glencore PLC’s acquisition of Teck’s coal business in 2024 took about eight months.
Following the Glencore decision, then industry minister François-Philippe Champagne said Ottawa from then on would approve foreign acquisitions of big Canadian critical minerals companies only “in the most exceptional of circumstances.” The Teck transaction is the first major test of those new rules.
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Anglo has made major commitments in an attempt to win approval from the federal government, including promising to move its global headquarters to Vancouver from London, and a commitment to relocate many of its high-ranking personnel to Canada, including Mr. Wanblad and chief financial officer John Heasley.
Approving the acquisition of Teck is fraught politically. Ottawa over the past few decades has allowed multinational mining companies – such as Vale SA of Brazil, Glencore of Switzerland and Rio Tinto PLC –to acquire many of Canada’s biggest mining companies. With the potential loss of yet another large domestic miner, Canada’s influence on the global mining stage could wane further.
The Teck acquisition also needs the nod from regulators in Europe, Japan, South Korea, the United States, Chile and China around antitrust concerns. Under scrutiny is the impact Anglo Teck will have on the global copper industry and whether too much power would be concentrated in one entity. Anglo Teck would control just under 5 per cent of the copper market.
Teck’s single biggest asset is its 60-per-cent share in Quebrada Blanca (QB), a massive copper mine in Chile.
A major part of the rationale for the deal is the potential of cost savings from combining QB with Anglo’s nearby Collahuasi mine. Anglo owns 44 per cent of Collahuasi. QB, however, has been plagued by operational problems since it started production a few years ago.
Glencore, which also owns 44 per cent of Collahuasi, tried to buy Teck in 2023, but was rebuffed. A year later, Glencore acquired only Teck’s coal business while the Canadian miner retained its critical minerals operations.
Before agreeing to the Anglo deal, Teck entertained an alternative transaction with Vale Base Metals, The Globe and Mail reported. The talks fell apart over valuation and governance concerns.
