The Australian – “I would say it was one of the most interesting and challenging deals in a lot of ways because of the share register,” says Minter Ellison partner Costas Condoleon, who worked on the deal for Rio. “The composition of the register made it really, really hard.”
The problem for Rio was that while the target’s directors recommended the deal, Riversdale’s biggest shareholders, steelmakers Tata Steel and CSN, controlled 47 per cent of the register — and they weren’t prepared to budge.