A fiesty attempt by South Africa's mining giant Harmony to create the world's largest gold producer by taking over rival Gold Fields abruptly ended Friday after seven months of court battles and mudslinging. A high court ruled in favour of Gold Fields when it said that the bid, which was to expire at noon (1000 GMT), in fact ended in mid-December last year. It said the country's Security Regulation Panel (SRP) had erred in allowing Harmony to extend its offer beyond the normal 60-day take-over limit, which started on October 18 when the initial bid was launched.
The court found that the Harmony offer had lapsed on December 18, meaning that any shares tendered after that date had to be returned to Gold Fields shareholders.
Harmony chief executive Bernard Swanepoel had earlier in the day all but conceded that the bid was doomed.
"In terms of securing control of Gold Fields, it's pretty clear that it's a highly unlikely event... if you just look at the share price, the legal challenges," Swanepoel told AFP in an interview an hour before the deadline for the bid expired.
He later said in a statement that while he was "surprised" at the high court decision, "the impact on Harmony was minimal" after the seven-month saga.
"The fact of the matter is that we own 11.5 percent of Gold Fields... and following the offer we now have a substantial asset in Gold Fields shares, currently worth about 3.6 billion rand (550,000 dollars, 450,000 euros)."
Harmony launched its hostile bid on October 18 last year to take over its bigger rival but Gold Fields fought the merger bid tooth and nail.
At the outset, the offer was estimated at 8.1 billion dollars (6.4 billion euros) but share prices have since dropped, reducing the value to 4.3 billion dollars.
The world's sixth-largest gold producer, Harmony offered 1.275 shares for one Gold Fields share in a ugly battle marked by accusations and counter-accusations from both sides.
Harmony hoped that a deal with Russia's Norilsk Nickel, Gold Field's largest shareholder, and share acquisitions would translate into a majority stake in its rival.
Swanepoel said it was too early to say whether Norilsk could be interested in buying out Harmony's share in Gold Fields. But he told AFP: "In the past when other gold companies approached me about it and asked 'what will happen if you end up with 11 percent and no more, would you be selling it to us?' my answer has always been that I am playing for 50 percent control, so I would just send them away."
"On Monday I might buy them a cup of tea and listen to what they have to say."
An analyst said Friday the bid in the long run had a detrimental effect on South Africa's sunset gold mining industry.
"It's been an absolute disaster. The losses are horrendous. The losses in market capital between the two groups are around 20 billion (rand)," said Nick Goodwin, gold analyst at the Johannesburg-based T-sec brokerage.
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