04:26 PM EST - Teck Cominco Ltd. : is scooping up the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan's stake in the Fording Canadian Coal Trust (TSX:FDG.UN) for $599.4 million, a slight discount to recent market prices but still near a 15-month high for the trust's units. Teck said it is paying $36 per unit to a Teachers division for 16.65 million Fording units, representing 11.25 per cent of the trust. The units closed Friday at $37.65 on the Toronto Stock Exchange and traded as high as $38.75 in intraday trading on Monday after the deal was announced. The trust owns 60 per cent of the Elk Valley Coal Partnership, the world's second-largest exporter of hard metallurgical coal. Teck owns the other 40 per cent and manages the partnership's five mines in southeastern British Columbia and one in west-central Alberta. Teck Cominco Ltd.
shares T.TCK.B are trading down 40 cents at $47.55.
