According to Sky News, RIO is studying potential acquisitions including Teck Resources (NR). The article notes that a list of potential acquisitions has been drawn up but it remains unclear whether any offer would be made. Teck is considered the mostly likely copper asset to go next while the potential for aggressive MandA would be a shift for RIO. If there is ultimately a bid put forward for Teck, we expect BHP (=) would be likely to also get involved. Teck as a target makes sense In our recent meetings with clients, Teck Resources was the consensus pick to be the next acquisition target as miners look to increase copper exposure as the market gets further into a structural deficit. Having just completed its coal sale to Glencore (+), Teck''s EBITDA mix is now 85% copper and 15% zinc per 2025 Visible Alpha consensus. Its scale (2025 copper guidance of 550-620kt) is big enough to move needle and has greenfield and brownfield optionality longer-term. Count your blessings Any approach for Teck would need to be done on a friendly basis as Norman Keevil has effective voting control via his class A shares and the sunset agreement lasting another five years. In addition, last week Canada introduced new guidelines in which it would only approve foreign takeovers of large Canadian mining companies ''in the most exceptional of circumstances.'' Evolution not revolution Given the scale differences in the companies, a proforma TECK/RIO 2025 EBITDA mix would see copper increase to 32% vs 24% on standalone RIO basis. Copper is already a key pillar of the strategy with RIO so a conceptual deal would be doubling down in that aspect while iron ore would remain the primary earnings driver (see figure 1 overleaf). Attributable copper production of the proforma entity would be a top-3 producer globally and in-line with a Freeport (+), per our estimates.