According to a report Friday, Canada’s Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc. is considering alliances with global companies that could put together a competing offer to Anglo-Australian miner BHP Billiton’s hostile $38.6 billion bid for the fertilizer giant.

Citing people familiar with the matter, The Wall Street Journal reported that sovereign wealth funds, Chinese banks, and other national financial institutions could fund a global consortium to make a counter-offer to keep Potash out of BHP’s hands.

On Wednesday, BHP took its $130-a-share offer to Potash shareholders after the Canadian firm’s board of directors rejected the offer, saying it “grossly undervalued” the world’s largest fertilizer company.

According to the Journal report, Potash Chief Executive Bill Doyle said, “We are not opposed to a sale; we are opposed to a steal of the company.”

Meanwhile, a Chinese company could be putting together a competing bid for Potash, said a separate report Friday in the Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post.

The report quoted J.P. Morgan’s Ian Henderson as saying that China is “dependent upon potash exports, so they are a big customer of Potash Corp.”

(Thanks to MarketWatch and Wikipedia)