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At least two bidders vie for Noranda Aluminum upstream assets

https://www.chemnet.com   Oct 19,2016 Platts
At least two bidders, including stalking horse New Day Aluminum LLC, were still competing late afternoon Tuesday for the right to acquire Noranda Aluminum's remaining upstream assets, sources confirmed to S&P Global Platts.

Those remaining upstream assets are the 1.2 million mt/year Gramercy alumina refinery in Louisiana and St. Ann bauxite mining operation in Jamaica.

They said New Day, an affiliate of DaDa Holdings LLC, a company newly formed by former senior management of Wise Metals, was joined at the auction in New York City by at least one, unidentified bidder.

A receptionist in the New York offices of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, the site of the auction, said in a phone call that bidding was continuing as of 4:45 pm EDT Tuesday. The auction started at 1 pm EDT.

If history is any guide, bidders possibly were headed for a long night -- a July 7 auction for Noranda's downstream business lasted until nearly midnight before Swedish aluminum rolled products producer Granges emerged victorious, edging out US-based JW Aluminum. The downstream assets comprised three active aluminum rolling mills in Tennessee, Arkansas and North Carolina, with combined yearly capacity of 495 million pounds. The $324.2 million sale closed August 22.

New Day offered $21.5 million for Gramercy and St. Ann, both of which continue to operate.

Noranda recently agreed to sell its idled 263,000 mt/year New Madrid primary aluminum smelter in southeastern Missouri to Swiss-based ARG International AG for $13.7 million.
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