Alcoa Partners With Chinalco To Take 12% Rio Tinto Stake. Stocks in Europe surge on bid speculation, led by Rio Tinto

Alcoa Partners With Chinalco To Take 12% Rio Tinto Stake

Last Update: 2/1/2008 3:48:22 AM

DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

Alcoa Inc. (AA) is partnering with Aluminum Corporation of China, or Chinalco, to
buy 12% of the UK common stock of Rio Tinto PLC.

Alcoa will contribute up to $1.2 billion to the total investment.

The investment will be made through a special purpose vehicle, called Shining
Prospect Pte. Ltd., created for this purpose. Shining Prospect is based in
Singapore and id wholly owned by Chinalco.

Through its investment, Alcoa will acquire an equity stake in Shining Prospect
commensurate with its cash contribution to the investment.

-Thomas Derpinghaus; 201-938-5400; AskNewswires@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

Stocks in Europe climb on bid speculation

Chinalco, Alcoa take 12% stake in Rio Tinto, other miners also advance

By Sarah Turner, MarketWatch

Last Update: 3:49 AM ET Feb 1, 2008

LONDON (MarketWatch) - European shares looked set to start the new month on a
positive note on Friday, rising sharply as deal speculation in the mining sector
gave sentiment a boost ahead of some key U.S. jobs data.

The pan-European Dow Jones Stoxx 600 index (ST:SXXP) jumped 1.1% to 325.83, led
higher by strong gains from Rio Tinto (RTP)(UK:RIO).

Shares in the firm climbed 10.6% after Chinalco and Alcoa (AA) said Friday that
they’ve acquired a 12% stake in the miner.

Although Chinalco and Alcoa said they do not currently intend to make an offer
for Rio Tinto, but reserve the right to make an offer under certain
circumstances.

“Our acquisition of a significant strategic stake in Rio Tinto today reflects our
confidence in the long term prospects for the rapidly evolving global mining
sector,” the group said.

The news meant that shares in BHP Billiton (UK:BLT)(BHP) got a lift as well,
recently up 7.7%. BHP Billiton approached Rio Tinto with a $114 billion takeover
proposal in late 2007, but Rio claims the proposal undervalues it.

Other miners on the rise included Anglo American (UK:AAL), up 5.7% and Vedanta
Resources (UK:VED), up 3.7%.

The U.K. FTSE 100 index (UK:UKX) surged 1.5% to 5,967.60, the German DAX 30 index
(DX:1876534) climbed 1.3% to 6,940.33 and the French CAC-40 index (FR:1804546)
jumped 1.6% to 4,949.23.

Investors will be looking for more clues about the state of the U.S., economy
when key jobs data is released later Friday.

The January nonfarm payroll report, which provides the best look at the health of
the labor market and income, is expected to show 85,000 jobs created in the
month. See full story.
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U.S. stocks rallied on Thursday after bond insurer MBIA (MBI) said it did not
believe its triple-A rating was in jeopardy.

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