Potash Corp. officially rejects BHP bid

Saskatchewan Crown corporation searching for investors to fend off hostile foreign takeover

Potash Corporation, the world’s biggest fertilizer maker and one of Canada’s most successful corporations, is scrambling to avoid a takeover by Australian mining company BHP Billiton. The attempt by a foreign entity to buy a Crown corporation created and owned by the Saskatchewan government has stirred nationalist feelings in some Canadians but sent stock in the company soaring last week. Potash Corporation has rejected BHP’s proposed $36.8-billion (U.S.) takeover bid as “wholly inadequate” and is reportedly courting the equally foreign Chinese company Sinochem and Brazil’s Vale SA to come up with alternative offers.