Azzet reports on three stocks with price moving updates today.
BHP receives limp response to plans to abandon Anglo American takeover ~
With BHP (ASX: BHP) shares struggling to remain above $40 after revealing plans to abandon having another crack at Anglo American (LSE: AAL), long-suffering shareholders have further reason to question management’s capacity to make big growth and capex decisions.
Since nudging $50 late December 2023, the world’s biggest miner’s shares fell to $35.42 mid-April 2025 and since then have bounced as high as $43.60 mid-October.
Given the stock’s exposure to iron ore, the share price has reflected weak demand from China, with the country’s steel mills cutting output due to weakening profits and declining demand from the construction sector.
Based on BHP’s less-than-successful US$10 billion push into Canadian potash – plagued by delays and a blowout in costs - the market clearly doesn’t want BHP to fritter more of its war chest on another white elephant.
Adding to BHP’s potash concerns are new revelations that the market is seriously oversupplied with prices – down 13% this year – expected to continue falling.
Economists at Rabobank believe these concerns have undermined BHP’s multibillion-dollar ambitions to expand into the sector.
The longer it takes to identify more meaningful long-term investments, the longer it will take to pivot away from its exposure to iron ore which continues to account for over 50% of the company's underlying earnings.
After kicking the tyres of Anglo American for over 18 months, the Mike Henry-led BHP has again scotched any future discussions of a takeover offer for the smaller miner.
What the market clearly struggled with today were comments from the BHP boss that appear to favour organic growth over a growth-by-acquisition strategy that the market has come to expect.
Henry noted that while the deal [Anglo American] would have delivered “strong strategic merits”, it remains confident in its own growth pipeline.
BHP’s decision to walk away from Anglo American - after making no less than three bids in its $74 billion takeover offer in 2024 - has raised doubts about the miner’s growth strategy, given that a takeover would have advanced the company’s stated desire to boost its copper assets.
The Anglo American decision also heightens questions over Henry’s future, with the market expecting him to exit the top job in 2026.
Meantime, while BHP is enjoying some modest tailwinds from the 0.3% boost in the iron ore price, the company is feeling great heat from a major Chinese state-controlled iron ore buyer instructing steel mills to ban the use of some product exported from WA.
BHP has a market cap of $206 billion; the share price is up 1.3% in one year and down 4.8% in the last week.
The share price was trading $0.79% higher at noon.
The stock appears to be in a long-term uptrend, confirmed by multiple indicators.
Consensus is Hold.
Monash IVF soars after rejecting $312 million bid
Shares in Monash IVF (ASX: MVF) were up 39.3% by 2:25 pm AEDT (3:25 am GMT) on the news that the pioneering reproductive health-care company has rejected an unsolicited 80-cent-per-share takeover proposal from a consortium led by Genesis Capital and Soul Patts, which already holds 19.6% of the stock.
While management was quick to dismiss the offer as opportunistic - and well below comparable fertility sector deals – the market clearly likes the fact that the company – recently in the news for all the wrong reasons – is now seen as a takeover target.
2025 has been an annus horribilis for Monash IVF after experiencing two separate IVF bungles - the result of human error - which led to the exit of former CEO Michael Knaap in June.
However, the market appears to have moved on from these events with the consortium’s non-binding bid valuing the business at 7.7 times forecast FY25 earnings — a multiple that the board said represents a “substantial discount” to recent Australian IVF business transactions.
After reviewing the proposal with advisers, the board unanimously rejected it, citing its conditional nature, the steep valuation discount, and uncertainty around the consortium’s financing.
Chairman Richard Davis said the timing and pricing “materially under value the company”.
While the company will consider any future approaches that offer “compelling value”, the consortium also flagged the option for shareholders to roll their equity into an unlisted private vehicle.
Monash IVF has hired Macquarie Capital and Clayton Utz and said shareholders need not act.
Meanwhile, due to weaker-than-expected performance between July and October, the company told shareholders last week that full-year earnings were now expected at the bottom end of its forecast $20 million to $23 million range.
Having traded as high as $1.50 early May 2024, the share price bounced to a low of $0.61 mid-November this year.
Today’s share price rally – on the back of the failed bid – gives the market greater confidence that, despite previous slip-ups, the company’s fundamentals remain intact.
When Melbourne’s Datt Capital snapped up a stake in Monash IVF last August, it suspected the company had been punished too severely for botching two embryo transfers.
“It’s important to separate the forest from the trees here – Monash IVF’s model is diversified, and it still has the largest market share, so this was a hiccup rather than the structural decline the market is pricing in,” said Datt Capital’s chief investment officer Emanuel Datt, who added the stock to his high-flying Small Companies Fund in June.
While Monash IVF downgraded its full-year earnings guidance in May – due to fewer customers - it denied any links to the first embryo mix-up a month earlier.
Two weeks ago, the fertility company appointed Dr Victoria Atkinson as its new managing director, effective 18 May next year.
Monash IVF Group has a market cap of $331 million; the share price is down 25% in one year and up 20% in the last month.
The stock’s shares appear to be in a long-term bearish trend, confirmed by multiple indicators.
Consensus is Moderate Buy.
Somerset Minerals rallies on high-grade copper system at Jura North
Shares in Somerset Minerals (ASX: SMM) were trading 25% higher this afternoon after the small cap explorer (formerly Tempus Resources Ltd) reported strong results from drilling at its flagship Jura North, Coppermine Project in Canada, which suggests potential for a significant copper deposit.
Today’s results include thick, high-grade intersections such as 42.7m at 2.69% copper and 59.4m at 1.5%.
Every hole drilled so far has intersected copper mineralisation, with geophysics indicating the system may extend to more than 600m depth.
Alongside drilling, the company has launched a large regional exploration program across its 1,665km² landholding, targeting more than 100 mapped copper occurrences to define what may be an emerging belt-scale copper province.
The company has identified a large mineralised system that remains open in all directions.
With plans for an aggressive 2026 drilling program, Somerset aims to expand the system and explore new targets, potentially transforming the project into a district-scale copper camp.
This development is expected to position Somerset as a promising player in the copper mining sector, with the potential to deliver substantial value to its stakeholders.
Commenting on today’s update, managing Director, Chris Hansen told the market that over the past six months, Somerset has achieved what many explorers take years to deliver.
The explorer has moved from initial acquisition to completing two back-to-back drill campaigns, each of which has delivered thick, continuous and high-grade copper intercepts across multiple zones at Jura North.
“Jura North has rapidly emerged as an advanced, high-quality discovery with clear potential to evolve into a significant copper deposit,” said Hansen, who noted that Jura represents less than 5% of the company’s large 1,665 km² Coppermine Project landholding.
“This work is laying the foundation for what we firmly believe is a genuine beltscale copper camp, capable of delivering not just one, but several significant copper discoveries.”
During the September quarter, the company completed a $4.0 million capital raising (before costs) and held a cash balance of $1.0 million.
Somerset Minerals has a market cap of $14 million; the share price is down 19% in the last month and up 20% year to date.
The stock’s shares appear to be in a near-term downtrend confirmed by the relationship between the 5 and 20-day moving averages.
Consensus does not cover this stock.
This article does not constitute financial or product advice. You should consider independent advice before making financial decisions.
