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Ta ta, Trahar Posted: Tue, 27 Feb 2007 [miningmx.com] -- ANGLO American’S 373 US cents full-year share earnings announcement last week, and $3bn share buy-back programme, pretty much represents CEO Tony Trahar’s last major public appearance for the company. What now lies ahead is some splendid retirement, although it remains to be seen how long Trahar will sit in the shade sucking a pina colada through two straws. Cynthia Carroll, who’s Trahar’s successor, looked shattered, having covered every acre of grass Anglo owns, visiting mines from Chile to the underground reaches of Anglo Platinum’s Amandelbult mine. Making a brief introduction at Anglo’s results presentation, Carroll had, she croaked, nearly lost her voice, which is a good sign as it probably means there was a lot of speaking during her world tour of Anglo’s assets; a lot of questions, maybe uncomfortable ones. So what do South African shareholders make of Trahar’s seven-year stint in the role as CEO? There’s remarkable agreement that he presides over a better company today, than the one he inherited from Julian Ogilvie Thompson in 2000. It’s more streamlined and has an established presence in London. At a price-earnings ratio of 20, the company is highly rated against its peers. Said Wayne McCurrie of Advantage Asset Management: “Shareholders have done extremely well out of Anglo. It’s a way better company.” Getting rid of Namakwa Sands and Mondi is additionally a good move, said McCurrie. He also thought the $10bn in share buy-backs lately have been wondrous. But, there’s a sense that Trahar’s conservatism was allowed to dominate. He called, for instance, the commodity markets wrong in 2003 when BHP Billiton was doing flik-flaks over the Chinese prospects, and India. He pulled out of Zambia’s copperbelt when he shouldn’t have. Also, he seemed a bit slow to adopt the capital restructuring BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto showered on shareholders. Quite how Anglo would have fared without the aid of the commodity markets bull run that Trahar so flatly insisted would imminently soften is, alas, a question of hypothesis. Click Here to subscribe to our daily newsletter
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