Washington (Platts)--1Mar2011/432 pm EST/2132 GMT

The possibility that African copper producer Equinox Minerals itself would become a takeover target if it succeeds in acquiring Lundin Mining will not halt its plans, Equinox CEO Craig Williams said Tuesday.

"I've been answering this question since 2007, when First Quantum [Minerals] took a try at us, and so I'm used to looking over my shoulder," Williams said during a webcast presentation at the BMO Capital Markets Metals & Mining Conference in Florida.

"But you can't let that worry you. If you grow your company as quickly and as efficiently as you can, you undertake accretive transactions like the one we've just done and the one we're implementing here, and as long as you're growing your company and benefitting your shareholders, I think there's no point in worry about who's coming up behind you," Williams said, referring to last year's acquisition of Citadel Resources and the recent unsolicited offer to acquire Lundin Mining.

"If they come, they come," Williams said. "You handle that at the time. My priority is the interests of my shareholders."

"We've gone over the last six years from being a $50 million market company to a $1 billion market cap, and I think we've done a pretty good job," he said.

Williams also dismissed concerns that the Lundin acquisition would make the company too large and present too many growth challenges for existing management.

"We've have been rapidly expanding our management team, and that will continue. But I think the important thing in these acquisitions is to be targeting acquisitions where you have confidence in the management teams of people you're taking over," he said.

As an example, Williams cited the retention of management at the Jabal Sayid copper-gold project in Saudi Arabia from Citadel.

"We're very comfortable with the onsite team that is building that mine," he said.

Williams said he had high regard for the managers and engineers at Lundin, and was confident the cultures of the two companies were similar.

"So I would certainly be hopeful that a lot of them would stay with larger team and facilitate that expansion," he said.

--Nick Jonson, nick_jonson@platts.com

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