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- BUSINESS, Page 77Business NotesTAKEOVERSOf Gold Mines And Jacuzzis
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- The setting was an unlikely place to announce the largest
- corporate takeover in Britain. Employees of Consolidated Gold
- Fields, the world's second largest gold producer, had gathered
- last week at the London Zoo for a dinner party to celebrate the
- company's rebuff in May of a hostile takeover bid by South
- African-controlled Minorco. Not until the meal was over did
- ConsGold Chairman Rudolph Agnew inform his troops that the
- company's board had accepted a $5.5 billion takeover bid from
- Hanson PLC, the $12.5 billion British group whose holdings
- include Jacuzzi and Farberware.
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- Lord Hanson, the company's chairman, and Sir Gordon White,
- head of U.S. operations, have built their empire by acquiring
- assets at bargain prices and then selling off pieces to pay down
- their debts. As a result, the 102-year-old ConsGold, which owns
- 49% of Newmont Mining, the largest gold producer in the U.S.,
- is likely to be split up. Some of its divisions may wind up in
- the hands of the company's first suitor, Minorco.
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