The story
Takeovers (2005–2006)
On October 11, 2005, Inco's CEO Scott Hand announced a friendly takeover bid to buy out the operations of longtime rival Falconbridge for $12 billion. If approved, the deal would have made Inco the world's largest producer of nickel. Davis's Xstrata (which already owned ~20% of Falconbridge shares) subsequently submitted a hostile takeover bid for Falconbridge, resulting in a bidding war between Inco and Xstrata. The Xstrata bid was successful, but not before Falconbridge employed a poison pill to delay the acquisition, raising its share price from $28 to $62.50 in the meantime.
Teck Cominco submitted a hostile takeover bid to purchase Inco on May 8, 2006 for $16 billion if it agreed to abandon its takeover of Falconbridge. On June 26 of the same year, Phelps Dodge submitted a friendly takeover bid to purchase a combined Inco and Falconbridge for around $40 billion; that offer was also withdrawn because of the failure of the Inco-Falconbridge merger.
On August 14, 2006 Brazilian mining company Vale S.A. (aka CVRD) extended an all-cash offer to buy Inco for $17 billion. That offer received approval from the Canadian government's investment review agency on October 19, and was accepted by Inco shareholders on October 23. Part of the takeover deal was that CVRD would operate Inco as a separate nickel mining division; all of CVRD's nickel operations, including mines at Onca Puma and Vermelho in Brazil, were transferred to Inco's management. Inco was delisted from the NYSE on November 16, 2006 and the TSX on January 5, 2007. According to its current web site, Inco is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Vale (formerly CVRD).
As subsidiary
The 2009-10 Vale-Inco strike lasted 15 months; one of the longest on record in Canada.
In May 2010, Vale changed the name of Vale-Inco to simply Vale, stating the change is "a milestone that aligns it more fully with other Vale operations worldwide and reflects its position as part of the world's second largest mining company".
In 2015, Vale was said to be exploring an IPO of its base metals unit for $30–35 billion, in order to lighten its debt load.
Reorganisation as VBM
In May 2023 it was announced that Mark Cutifani would be appointed as Chair of the new Vale Base Metals (VBM) subsidiary of global mining giant Vale S.A. Vale was looking to divest from its tar baby, as early as December 2022. At the time VBM was a supplier to Tesla and General Motors (GM). Reports were afoot that GM, Mitsui, and the Saudi Public Investment Fund were interested buyers of a 10% stake. Former Tesla executive Jerome Guillen would join the "energy transition board" of VBM along with Cutifani.
In May 2023 it was announced that VBM had entered a joint venture with the Ford Motor Company and Huayou Cobalt on a $4.5bn nickel processing facility in Indonesia.
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Vale spun out its metals business as a separate ringfenced entity headquartered in Toronto, with an independent board chaired by Cutifani. That process completed in July 2023. The unit was then one of the world's largest producers of nickel, copper, and cobalt, and had operations across the globe. The parent company's chief executive Eduardo Bartolomeo stated that Cutifani could help the division explore a future “liquidity event”. In early 2023, the parent company earned 80% of its profits in its South American iron mines, and the balance from its Base Metals group.
In July 2023 Cutifani sold off 10% of the capital to the Saudi Public Investment Fund and 3% to Engine No. 1. The value of the transaction was $3.4 billion.
As of May 2024, Vale Canada was reported to have a sales agreement with "Xstrata Copper Canada" for the sale of copper anodes and copper concentrates produced in Sudbury.
From Wikipedia’s article on Vale Canada, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5