Randgold to up Ashanti offer

Nasdaq- and London-listed Randgold Resources is set to announce early Friday afternoon that it is increasing its offer for Ghana's Ashanti Goldfields, sources familiar with the matter told I-Net Bridge on Friday.

World number two gold miner AngloGold (ANG) and Randgold are currently in a bidding war for Ashanti Goldfields, one of the last remaining independent global gold miners with significant production.

Randgold is offering one of its shares for every two Ashanti shares while AngloGold's offer is for the exchange of 26 of its shares for every 100 Ashanti shares.

Both offers value Ashanti at $1.260 billion using each company's share values on Friday morning.

AngloGold was quoted unchanged at 269 rand a share in Johannesburg while in London Randgold was quoted down $22.38 a share, down $0.07 from the company's close in New York on Thursday of $22.45.

"Like all good auctions, the Ashanti assets are important for both parties. For Anglogold, the Ashanti assets could raise the diversification of its mining assets and probably enhance the market rating of its entire asset base. For Randgold, to step up from being a mining junior to mid tier producer could be a coup," an analyst said in a note this week.

While Randgold and AngloGold are slogging it out, Canada's Barrick and Placer Dame have not been willing to comment on their intentions regarding Ashanti.

With the consolidation of the global gold mining sector, Africa is becoming a more attractive hunting ground for the world's major mining groups with Placer Dome recently buying Tanzanian gold miner East African Gold Mines while world number one Newmont has a gold project in Ghana.