Hancock raises Atlas offer to $413m

Gina Rinehart's Hancock Prospecting has conditionally upped its takeover offer for Atlas Iron in a bid to win over Fortescue Metals Group, which holds a blocking stake.

Hancock holds 76.3 per cent of Atlas shares, nearly three months after lodging its target statement.

That original bid had been at 4.2 cents per share.

Today’s move means Hancock will pay 4.45 cents per share if it can secure 87 per cent of the company, and will also pay an additional 0.25 cents to those former shareholders who have already sold their slices.

Effectively, it means that if Fortescue sells its 11.37 per cent blocking stake, all Atlas shareholders will receive a higher return.

But at a level of 87 per cent, Hancock will still fall short of the 90 per cent mark needed for a compulsory acquisition.

The offer has been extended until next week.

It is the latest twist in an ongoing saga.

In April, Atlas and Chris Ellison-controlled Mineral Resources struck a $280 million merger deal, which implied an offer price of 3.02 cents per share.

The following month, Atlas flagged an impairment of up to $100 million.

The landscape changed dramatically in June when Andrew Forrest’s Fortescue snapped up a 19.9 per cent slice of Atlas and threatened to block the MinRes takeover bid.

Just days later, Hancock took a similarly sized position, leading to speculation that the three miners were chasing development rights at Port Hedland, in addition to Atlas’s iron ore mining operation.

The state government then intervened and removed Atlas’s port development rights.

Atlas accepted a $390 million offer from Hancock on June 29.

In August, Fortescue announced it would retain its blocking stake in Atlas.