Newmont looks beyond gold

Article Excerpt

NEWMONT MINING $27.53 (New York symbol NEM; Shares outstanding: 492.8 million; Market cap: $13.5 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Average; Dividend yield: 3.6%; www.newmont.com) is considering adding copper mines to diversify its assets. The company currently gets 90% of its production from gold mining. Newmont is considering a bid, or perhaps a joint venture, to buy mining giant Glencore Xstrata’s Peruvian copper project. Glencore is selling the property, called Las Bambas, for up to $5 billion to meet conditions set by Chinese regulators during its 2012 acquisition of Xstrata. Newmont held cash of $2.1 billion on June 30, 2013. Its long-term debt of $6.7 billion is a manageable 50% of its market cap. The company raised a further $578 million in July 2013, when it sold its 6.5% interest in Canadian Oil Sands (Toronto symbol COS). Newmont is still a hold. hold…