(Bloomberg) — Saudi Arabian Mining Co. called off talks to swap two units for shares in its Bahraini rival that would have created one of the world’s biggest aluminum producers.
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Maaden, as the Saudi company is known, had said in September that it was planning to sell the entire share capital of two of its units — Maaden Aluminium Co. and Maaden Bauxite and Alumina Co. — to Aluminium Bahrain BSC, also called Alba. In exchange, Alba would issue new shares for allotment to Maaden.
Alba’s shares dropped as much as 8.6% in Bahrain trading, while Maaden was 0.7% lower. The companies on Monday didn’t disclose why the deal talks were called off. They had last month extended their non-binding talks by four months.
Following the announcement in September, Maaden had signed a separate agreement to buy shares in Alba that were held by a unit of petrochemical company Saudi Basic Industries Corp., in a deal valued at about $1 billion.
Maaden and Alba have become major players in the global aluminum industry in recent years, particularly in value-added products that have historically been dominated by a handful of suppliers.
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