Macarthur Coal Ltd said today that it has rejected the lowered offer from Peabody Energy Corporation of US. Macarthur said that it found the bid too low to accept. Peabody Energy Corp., the largest coal producer in U. S., had lowered its bid to $A3.8 billion after carrying out due diligence. The shares of Macarthur fell 15% today following the rejection of the Peabody bid by the company.

Peabody, based in St. Louis, Missouri, last week lowered its initial offer by around $A250 million to $A3.82 billion. The US coal producer offered $A15 per Macarthur share in the new bid instead of $A16 per share offered earlier.

Peabody said that it is lowering the offer after carrying out due diligence. The new proposed 40% resource super profits tax by the Australian Government also played a role in Peabody's decision to reduce its bid.

Macarthur said today in a statement to the Australian Securities Exchange that its largest shareholder Citic Pacific did not find the Peabody offer attractive. Citic Pacific, a China based company, has a 22.4% stake in Macarthur Coal Ltd. Macarthur has already rejected two offers of Peabody and rival Australian miner New Hope as inadequate earlier.

However, Peabody said after the rejection of its offer that it is now looking forward to advancing its internal growth projects and continuing to pursue other value-added investments to serve high demand markets.