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Freeport McMoRan Buys Phelps Dodge

Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold pays $25.9 billion for Phelps Dodge Corp, creating the largest publicly traded copper company.

Freeport McMoRan's president and CEO, Richard Adkerson, and Phelps Dodge's CEO, J. Steven Whisler, have managed to finalize talks in the last couple of weeks.

Freeport-McMoRan offers $126.46 per Phelps Dodge share; $88 in cash and 0.67 of a common Freeport-McMoRan share.

Phelps Dodge representative said "the offer that they have brought to us is a 33 percent premium over what our stock price was last quoted at. So for us, it's a very compelling transaction."

Freeport McMoRan will pay $18 billion in cash (funds from JPMorgan and Merrill Lynch) and 137 million in issued shares.

Richard C. Adkerson, president and CEO of Freeport-McMoRan:

"This is a competitive, global marketplace in which there is a number of significant producers. We will be a large company, but not anything like one that will cause any concerns."