ArcelorMittal Says No Intention To Extend Baffinland Offer

Steel titan ArcelorMittal (MT, MT.AE) said Wednesday it is keeping to its Baffinland Iron Mines Corp. (BIMGF, BIM.T) offer deadline rather than delaying the process to the new year as requested by Canadian regulatory authorities.

ArcelorMittal said it has "no intention" of extending its offer beyond Dec. 29 and said it believes its bid will be successful because its C$1.25 a share offer for all of Baffinland's shares is "superior" to Nunavut Iron Ore Acquisition Inc.'s offer of C$1.35 a share for 39.8% of Baffinland's shares.

Nunavut is a wholly owned subsidiary of Iron Ore Holdings LP (IRNHF, IOH.AU), which in turn is backed by the Energy Minerals Group, a U.S. private equity firm. Nunavut is seeking to gain majority control of Baffinland by increasing its stake to 50.1% from 10.3%.

The world's largest steelmaker said it has asked Baffinland to waive an adopted shareholders' rights plan in order to allow its offer to go ahead. The rights plan would in any case "cease" if ArcelorMittal failed to extend its offer until mid-January, according to the Ontario Securities Commission.

Baffinland adopted the shareholders' rights plan to protect itself from any company's creeping in and building a significant stake in the company.

Nunavut recently complained to the Ontario Securities Commission about the adopted shareholders' rights plan. The Ontario Securities Commission agreed to hear the case, but only in the new year, and asked that both companies extend their offer until then so that the hearing could be completed.

ArcelorMittal said it believes its own bid is superior to Nunavut's bid because its provides Baffinland shareholders with certainty of value whereas Nunavut's offer doesn't.

The Luxembourg steelmaker said the value of Nunavut's partial offer was "highly uncertain" because the Nunavut only promised to purchase a portion of the shares (if all of them were tendered), leaving a large number of Baffinland shareholders wondering how to value their residual minority shareholding in the aftermath of such a deal.

-By Alex MacDonald, Dow Jones Newswires; [phone]; [e-mail]