Tata told the market on Monday it intended to buy a 7.3% stake in the Australian Securities Exchange-listed miner.
No strangers to each other, Tata and Riversdale entered into a joint venture last year, which saw Tata pay $100 million for a 35% interest in Riversdale’s Mozambique Benga and Tete coking coal projects and a 40% off-take agreement.
In a separate transaction, coal stalwart and founder of Australian coal miner Macarthur Coal, Ken Talbot, also increased his Riversdale stake, from 11.3% to 13.4%.
Talbot is the chief executive of the Talbot Group Holdings, which has coal interests in the United States.
Earlier this year, the Talbot Group took a 19.9% stake in Pennsylvania coal miner PBS Coals – which has plans to triple its capacity.
Riversdale operates a coal mine in South Africa’s Zululand coalfield and produced a 917,622-tonne run of mine coal for the year ending June 30.
Riversdale was trading up by nearly 7% at $9.09 in late afternoon trade.
