www.miningmx.com | mining_fin Alcan's Cynthia Carroll takes Anglo helm

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Cynthia Carroll, CEO, Anglo American

� Anglo American chief executives - a history
� Gilbertson in Anglo takeover mix
� Anglo unveils far-reaching restructure
� Anglo's new size makes it a target
� Trahar sells R13m in Anglo stock
� Anglo's road to dilution
� Tony Trahar�s end game
� Anglo returns $5bn to shareholders

� JSE:ANGLO AMERICAN PLC:
20705c

Alcan's Cynthia Carroll takes Anglo helm
Allan Seccombe
Posted: Tue, 24 Oct 2006

[miningmx.com] -- CYNTHIA CARROLL, who heads up Alcan Primary Metal Group, will have the uneviable task of defending Anglo American from corporate action when she takes over as chief executive after Tony Trahar retires from the company in April next year.

Carroll, 49, will join the Anglo board in mid-January next year and take over as CEO from 1 March 2007 after Trahar stands down at the AGM in April, Anglo said in a statement.

"Cynthia Carroll has a very strong track record of improving operational performance, transforming culture, including improving safety performance, and of integrating and realising synergies from newly acquired assets," said Anglo chairman Sir Mark Moody-Stuart.

her first mission is to defend Anglo against raiders

Her name was not one of those mentioned in the swirl of speculation about who would take the reins from Trahar at a time when rumours are circulating in the market that other major mining and metal groups are eyeing Anglo's assets.

"This appointment is certainly a surprise," said Nigel Suliaman from Metropolitan Asset Management in Cape Town.

"If Anglo is to survive she is going to need a very clear strategy. Her first mission would be to defend the company against raiders," Suliaman said. "The market accepts it as a done deal that Anglo is going to be broken up."

"For her to have left Alcan to come to a company with a lifespan of a few months and then belong to someone else is not something she would have signed up for."

Carroll sees one of her early priorities being the completion of a restructuring initiated last October to bring Anglo a sharper mining focus.

"I'm looking forward to understanding what further potential there is within our asset base, and how we continue to grow that. Obviously the launch of the initiatives on restructuring, we want to complete those and move forward," she said in an interview on Cantos.

It is the exit from non-core assets near the end of Trahar's tenure that analysts say has made Anglo a takeover target by reducing its size. The strategy comes at a time when Anglo's peers are on a buying spree, something Trahar has eschewed, saying valuations are just too high in the current bullish commodity cycle.

The Times speculated on 21 October that Anglo will be the first target of the enlarged $30bn Rusa after its merger with Sual and Glencore. In August, Britain's Observer newspaper speculated on Xstrata, Rio Tinto and Brazil�s Compania Vale do Rio Doce (CVRD) as possible suitors.

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Under Trahar's leadership, Anglo made some unpopular acquisitions such as the Chilean copper operations Disputada (now Minera Sur Andes) and the Shell coal assets in Australia, Venezuela and Colombia, which have proved to be perfectly timed, Suliaman said.

"That timing was superb. The problem is that it stopped there and when prices ran, Trahar's conservative nature kicked in and he didn't want to pay the higher prices and perhaps he didn't recognise the extent to which this commodity cycle was different from more recent cycles," he said.

"All the good work he's done has been overshadowed by his peers, who have done better. It's not that he's done anything bad. His failures were based on his conservative nature."

Peter Major, a fund manager at Cadiz, said he was unsure what message Anglo was trying to send to the market with Carroll's appointment. He said if the company had appointed someone like Mike Salamon, who steps down as BHP Billiton's executive president this week, it would have sent a very clear signal to the market.

"The message to me would have been we are in business for the long term. We are going to look for guys to buyout and devour. With Carroll, the message is we want to be different and want to surprise you. When you're old and talking about people's money you don't like surprises," Major said.

"She looks good on paper, but to bring her into the very top job is a little bit worrying. It's quite a shift job. This isn't a do you feel lucky, punk type job. It is one of the world's largest mining companies with a lot of divisions," he said. "It's too big a job to gamble on an outsider to change it."

South Africa's mines minister Buyelwa Sonjica welcomed the appointment, calling Carroll a pioneer for other women.

"She must know that she is there as a pioneer who has to open the industry and create an environment for more women to come in. That is the biggest responsibility she has," Sonjica said.

Alcan's Primary Metal Group has annual turnover of some $12bn, generating three quarters of Alcan's earnings. Carroll oversaw 18,000 people operating in 20 countries.

An American citizen, Carroll is a director of Sara Lee Corporation, a director of the American Aluminium Association and a director of the International Aluminium Institute.

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