IT HAS BEEN a strange few months for Kazakhstan’s largest listed metals and mining group, Eurasian Natural Resources (ENRC). In May, the London Stock Exchange-listed ferrochrome miner lodged a £7.05 billion bid for Kazakhmys, a smaller domestic rival. Kazakhmys, also listed on the LSE, not only balked but bit back. First, it got the Kazakh government in July to sell its 7.66% stake in ENRC in exchange for allowing the state to hold 15% of Kazakhmys – helping the latter increase its stake in ENRC to 22.25%. A month later, Kazakhmys then entered the open market, paying £400 million to raise its own stake in ENRC by three more percentage points, to a whisker over 25%. ENRC declined to raise its bid, meaning that any new tender for its rival would need to wait until November 2008 at the earliest....
