BHP Billiton Says It Won't Require EU Antitrust Approval for Potash Bid

BHP Billiton Ltd. won’t need European Union approval for its hostile $40 billion takeover offer for Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc., the world’s largest maker of fertilizer.

Potash and BHP don’t have enough fertilizer sales in the EU region to trigger a merger review by the European Commission, Melbourne-based BHP said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.

“Our offer does not require approval from the EU,” said Ruban Yogarajah, a spokesman for BHP, the world’s biggest mining company.

BHP wants to make the acquisition to diversify sales and benefit from surging demand for fertilizer as food-needs grow. EU objections helped derail BHP’s 2008 bid for Rio Tinto, prompted by complaints from European steelmakers that it could raise iron ore prices. The regulator is examining those companies’ plans to combine iron ore operations in Western Australia.

Bill Johnson, Potash’s director of public affairs, said in an e-mail that he “would not anticipate the sales volumes to Europe would trigger the need for European Union regulatory approval” for BHP’s proposal.

The commission, the antitrust regulator for the 27-nation bloc, can only step in on global deals if each of the companies have sales of more than 250 million euros ($317 million) in the region.

Potash and other Canadian fertilizer producers jointly sold $78.95 million of potash to Oceania and Europe last year, just 6 percent of sales outside North America. Johnson said those sales were “more heavily skewed towards Oceania.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Aoife White in Brussels at awhite62@bloomberg.net.

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