TAKEOVERS: Of Gold Mines And Jacuzzis

Of Gold Mines And Jacuzzis

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.

Lord Hanson, the company's chairman, and Sir Gordon White,...

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