Rothschild Seeking to Scoop up Mining Companies and Bulk Commodities

 Jesse Riseborough and Simon Casey

Vallar Plc, which raised 707.2 million pounds ($1.07 billion) in a London initial public offering, favors mining acquisitions involving bulk commodities such as iron ore and coal in North or South America, founder Nathaniel Rothschild said. 

Valuations among mid-cap mining companies “look very, very compelling,” he said today in a telephone interview. “What’s absolutely certain is that we can buy an asset that is a multiple of what we’ve raised.” 

Rothschild, 38, former co-president of New York-based hedge-fund firm Atticus Capital LLC and the only son of British financier Jacob Rothschild, tapped investors to help fund a purchase of a mining business or operation valued at 2 billion to 5 billion pounds. The Bloomberg World Mining Index has slumped 17 percent in the past three months after metal prices sank and European countries struggled to contain mounting debt. 

“The prices of public and private market mining assets are certainly cheaper than they were three months ago,” analysts at Liberum Capital Ltd. in London said today in a note to clients.

Rothschild, chairman of Vallar’s advisers, co-founder James Campbell, who is a former chief of coal and base metals at Anglo American Plc, and other managers invested 100 million pounds in Vallar, the company said in a statement.