Rio Tinto is a world leader in finding, mining and processing the earths mineral resources. The Groups worldwide operations supply essential minerals and metals that help to meet global needs and contribute to improvements in living standards. Rio Tinto encourages strong local identities and has a devolved management philosophy, entrusting responsibility with accountability to the workplace. Major products include aluminium, copper, diamonds, energy products (coal and uranium), gold, industrial minerals (borax, titanium dioxide, salt, talc and zircon), and iron ore. The Groups activities span the world but are strongly represented in Australia and North America with significant businesses in South America, Asia, Europe and southern Africa. Rio Tinto comprises wholly owned subsidiaries (such as Borax, Comalco, Hamersley, Rio Tinto Coal Australia, Kennecott and Rio Tinto Iron & Titanium), partly owned subsidiaries (Coal & Allied and Palabora) and non-managed, (Escondida) and joint ventures (Grasberg) in which public shareholders, other companies or governments are partners.

            Red = 25 day moving average.           Green = 200 day moving average.

SALES PER ACTIVITY (Data as of 31/12/2005)

Iron:        29%
Coal:       19%
Copper     18%
Aluminum: 14.5%
Minerals:  12.5%
:              6%
Misc:        1%

i do not believe for one mo that RIO are safe ...... given that the chinese stake is effectively via the chinese gov't, it is a racing certainty that there will already have been talks at senior gov'mental level

some curious manoeuvring ......

Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Tuesday that his government will assess Chinese state-owned aluminium giant Chinalco's application to move to a 19.9 percent stake in Rio Tinto on the basis of national interest under Australian foreign investment rules. ....... Chinalco said Monday it had voluntarily made a submission the FIRB to move to a 19.9 percent holding in Rio Tinto, the maximum level permitted before a takeover offer must be made under Australian takeover law.

But, the Chinese company said Monday it had no intention to move beyond the 12 percent holding it had jointly acquired with Alcoa Inc
Rudd said he had met today with China's Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi in Canberra and had discussions regarding Chinalco's investment in Rio Tinto.

Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan said he would apply the law in the national interest but he did not wish to comment on individual proposals.

BHP's board meet today to consider its options as well as sign off on the group's first half to December accounts.

The group will report its interim results early Wednesday morning in Sydney.

Analysts are forecasting the group (BHP) will report an interim net profit of about 6.45 billion US dollars, up from the previous first half's 6.17 billion dollars.

The result is expected to be down about 14 percent from the 7.5 billion dollar net profit posted for the second half of 2007, reflecting increasing costs across the group's operations and adverse currency movements.

and some more ......

BHP Billiton, the world's largest mining company, turned down an offer from Chinalco to discuss the Chinese company's acquisition of a 9 pct stake in the Rio Tinto group, the Times reported, citing no sources.

The Chinese state-owned aluminium producer is understood to have written to Don Argus, BHP Billiton's chairman, about starting talks, but is not thought to have received a reply, the paper said.

BHP Billiton's three-for-one share approach to Rio Tinto last November had been rejected by its smaller rival as undervaluing the company. BHP Billiton has been given a UK Takeover Panel deadline of tomorrow to make a formal offer or walk away for six months.

BHP Billiton is expected to make its intentions clear regarding Rio Tinto when it announces its interim results after the market's close in London tonight.

930pm London time according to their website

Couldn't find anything published here but this is on the Australian ASX website:

BLT offer for RIO: 61-page document 06 Feb2008

Basically 3.4 BLT shares for 1 RIO

Here's a link to the presentation by BLT re their offer for RIO:

Link to a 19-page presentation re BLT offer for RIO

at close of biz last night, BLT's bid was worth 5168
patently this was merely an opening salvo to force RIO to undo their flies or even take off their trousers.
it is certainly no less than reasonable to expect Chinalco to come back with a counter.
the Oz gov't will not be happy about this, but for sure there will have been high level talks between them and their counterpart in China

So
one now has the conundrum of guessing at what price a bid might be successful and then discounting that by the time element (it must surely take 6/9 months to completion) and also by the uncertainty as to whether everything will eventually fall apart at the seams.

at close of biz last night, RIO's sp was already 250 ahead of the game at 5418, so any purchase at that level is taking a fairly significant amount on trust

Fairly lengthy RNS out today from RIO, but we are not much further forward, imo.
"Analysts estimate the regulatory approval process could take up to a year to complete.
On whether BHP's approach could turn hostile, Rio Tinto said: 'It's a matter for them. We will play the card we are dealt with very thoughtfully.'
This would mean that any friendly takeover by BLT would be a very long & protracted affair, but a hostile takeover may seem more likely if BLT think that RIO's sought after price (?) is too great.

From today's Times:

BLT to press ahead with RIO bid

Last para is of particular interest:
"Chinalco will continue to raise the pressure, however. Xiao Yaqing, its chairman, is this week due to meet Australian government officials in Sydney to brief them on his lightning share raid and seek approval to raise his stake further still. The visit will fuel speculation that Chinalco and its partner Alcoa, the American aluminium miner, may be laying the groundwork for a potential full takeover."

Written 14/04/08...

The rally in UK stocks appears to be over following GE's profit warning. Before the warning the consensus was that the economy was slowing. Now there is evidence that the slowdown is hurting companies. When one of the largest companies in the world does not meet targets, the chances are that more companies will miss earnings forecast.

This comes at the end of a four-week rally in equities which I have labelled a bear market rally. This is because one of my sentimentindicators, the 34-day BTI, has been negative since January. A negative 34-day BTI is associated with bear markets. I suspect the next leg downhas started but for a few stocks like Rio Tinto (RIO) and BG Group (BG-), the oncoming decline could be seen as a simple correction. Thesestocks are making new highs in a bear market.

Take Rio Tinto. The recent break into new highs completes an inverse headand shoulders which is a bullish continuation pattern.

Note that prices tested the area 5910p-5920p on several occasions before breaking decisively higher a few days ago. The long term uptrend is intact. The stock may pull back in the next few days if the general market continues to decline but in the medium term an initial target is 6800p

LONDON (Thomson Financial) - "Rio Tinto said it secured an overall 85 percent increase in iron ore prices for the contract year starting April 1, 2008.

The world's third-largest mining group said the price for iron ore fines will increase 79.9 percent to 144.66 cents per dry metric tonne, while lump iron ore prices will jump 96.5 percent to 201.69 cents a metric tonne. The overall 85 percent rise is based on the production split with fines accounting for about three quarters of output and lump iron ore the remainder.

The price increase exceeds the 65 percent rise secured by Vale, the world's largest iron ore producer, for fines and the 71 percent gain the Brazilian company agreed for lump iron ore under the annual contracts with steelmakers.

The new prices could boost Rio Tinto's sales by about $2 billion a year in addition to the 65 percent already factored in based on the Vale contract negotiations, an analyst who asked not to be named said."

Bought some of these today at just over 49 today. They are so massively volatile they make the dow look tame. Could be quite a risky purchase with move to banks from miners oils but could also be a big winner. They bounced from this level in the feb sell off to 73 but then again the landscspe has changed since then

The talk of 60 share offer doesn't look too bad at the moment.

Just bought some of these at 32 nice falling knife though it did visit 36 as recently as this morning probably be long term hold as lots of support at 30/29, not convinced that Asia will lose interest in building over the next 5 years

Another drop today due to the price of metals going down again.
Shares are trading 19% below BHP's offer of 3.4 shares for each RIO shares.

It cannot make it's mind up today up 80 down -30 up 70 down 20.

She's certainly a volatile beast, short term target of 35

Probably worth a punt at these levels?

i note RIO closed down a whopping 326 at 2424