Anglo to sell nickel business to MMG for $500m

ANGLO American took gross cash proceeds from divestments to $5.3bn after announcing on Tuesday the sale of its South American nickel assets for $500m.

The buyer is MMG Singapore Resources, a division of China’s MMG. The consideration comprises upfront cash of $350m on deal completion and a further $100m in a price-linked earn out. A further $50m in cash is linked to MMG progressing the development projects in the nickel assets.

“Today’s agreement, together with those signed in November 2024 to sell our steelmaking coal business is expected to generate a total of up to $5.3bn of gross cash proceeds,” said Duncan Wanblad, CEO of Anglo in a statement.

On January 29, Anglo completed the sale of its 33.3% stake in Jellinbah Group which controls the Jellinbah East and Lake Vermont metallurgical coal mines in Australia. The properties were sold to Zashvin Pty Ltd which paid a total of A$1.6bn (about $1bn), now settled with Anglo ahead of its original schedule of the second quarter.

The balance of Anglo’s steelmaking coal assets in Australia is being sold for an additional $3.8bn to Peabody Energy.

The sale of the metallurgical coal and nickel mines represents relatively short work for Anglo as it focuses the group on copper and iron ore production – a strategy hinted at a year ago and then rolled out amid BHP’s hostile takeover attempt in May.

Anglo said on Monday that the demerger of its platinum business Anglo American Platinum was scheduled to be completed by June.

Amplats said in its results announcement that it would pay shareholders, including its 67% owner Anglo, a handsome R15.7bn final dividend. Anglo had already diluted its stake in Amplats from 79.3% last year in two private placements, raising a total of R16.8bn in cash.

The cash from asset sales, the private placement, the Amplats dividend and a generous final dividend announced today by Anglo’s 70%-owned Kumba Iron Ore may be used to ease pressure on Anglo’s balance sheet. As of end-June 2025, Anglo had net debt of $11.1bn, up from $10.6bn at the interim stage in the group’s 2023 financial year.

The only major piece in the puzzle for Anglo regarding its restructuring is the sale of its 85% stake in De Beers. Wanblad said earlier this month the process could take until year-end given the poor state of the diamond market.

De Beer is expected to book a large impairment on assets later this week when it and Anglo report their year-end numbers. The diamond subsidiary was Ebitda negative for the second half of the year.