ANGLO American CEO Duncan Wanblad ruled out “a flip-flop” on plans to sell the group’s 85% in De Beers and said China’s stimulus this week made him “more optimistic” about a sale proceeding.
Commenting in a keynote discussion at the Financial Times Mining Summit in London on Thursday, Wanblad said low demand for diamonds from China was the main factor behind holding back the diamond market.
“This long awaited stimulus makes me a little more optimistic that this will be less complicated than it might have been,” said Wanblad of selling De Beers. While there was “a real risk” the diamond market doesn’t recover next year there was “a low probability” Anglo would be holding De Beers into 2026, past its self-imposed sale deadline.
“The plan is to get it done and there is no way De Beers is a fit in the [Anglo] portfolio,” said Wanblad. “There is no flip-flop possibility.” In terms of a possible delay in the sale of the business, “We are talking about a couple of months,” he said.
Anglo was also on track to sell its metallugical coal mines in Australia by early next year at the latest – a process boosted by the Grosvenor mine where the damage sustained in a fire in June was “not as bad as it might have been”, said Wanblad.
“We are now in round two and we have a handful of selected tenders that will take us through to the end,” said Wanblad of the metallurgical mines. “So I hope with a fair wind in commodity prices we will get to a signing by the end of this year or early next year.”
Anglo suspended production at Grosvenor on June 30 following an underground “gas ignition” a day earlier. While all employees were safely evacuated, the fire resulted in Anglo “taking a pause” in the mine’s sale which had been flagged in May, said Wanblad.
“By the way [Grosvenor] is looking good,” said Wanblad. “From what the guys can see, given the access we have, the orebody is intact and the damage is not as extensive as might have been feared given the size of the fire.”
In addition to the sale of De Beers and the metallurgical mines Anglo in May also announced the demerger of Anglo American Platinum (Amplats).
Wanblad said the demerger was “on track” for the middle of next year describing a recent R7.2bn bookbuild in the platinum unit’s shares as attracting interest from both South African and international investors.
“The bookbuild a few weeks ago demonstrated it [Amplats] is a fabulous business …. the primary purpose was to really limit and mitigate some of flowback [of shares] as a result of the demerger. It is on track and we are hoping to get done by middle of next year.”
