Buying close to the bottom of the market should mean bagging a bargain. Rio Tinto is buying Arcadium Lithium at a time when slowing demand for electric vehicles is savaging the price of lithium used in batteries. The lithium carbonate price has dropped more than 80 per cent since its peak. Yet for all of Rio chief executive Jakob Stausholm’s talk of countercyclical moves, the $6.7bn price tag for Arcadium is not a steal.
在市场接近底部时购买应该意味着能够捡到便宜货。力拓(Rio Tinto)在电动汽车需求放缓导致电池用锂价格大幅下跌之际收购了Arcadium Lithium。锂碳酸盐价格自峰值以来已经下降了80%以上。然而，尽管力拓首席执行官石道成(Jakob Stausholm)谈到了逆周期举措，但以67亿美元的价格收购Arcadium并不算便宜。
Rio knows all too well the dangers of buying at the top of a market. Memories of its disastrous $38bn takeover of Canadian aluminium group Alcan in 2007 — right at the top of the aluminium market — still loom large. Arcadium is its biggest acquisition since. This time, Rio is betting that a painful lithium supply glut will reverse towards the end of the decade.
力拓深知在市场高点购买的危险。2007年以380亿美元收购加拿大铝业公司(Alcan)的灾难性经历至今仍然历历在目。Arcadium是其自那以来最大的收购。这一次，力拓押注痛苦的锂供应过剩将在本十年末逆转。