ANGLOGOLD Ashanti turned to South Africa’s legal profession in an effort to bolster its board announcing today the appointments of Bruce Cleaver, a former De Beers CEO and the former CEO of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, Nicky Newton-King.
Earlier this year the gold miner moved its primary listing from Johannesburg to the New York Stock Exchange and domiciled in London with a view to improving its access to deeper and cheaper pools of capital.
It had in 2020 sold the last of its South African mines, Mponeng (also the world’s deepest gold mine) to Harmony Gold for $300m including royalties.
Commenting on Wednesday, AngloGold chairperson Jochan Tilk described the appointments as bringing “extensive” leadership and experience that included “capital markets, strategy and commercial insights across developed and developing markets”.
Cleaver was CEO of De Beers until 2023 before becoming co-chair and then finally leaving the organisation after 18 years at the end of 2023. A lawyer, he previously worked at Webber Wentzel. He is currently chairperson of Gemfields Group, listed in the UK and on the JSE.
Newton-King, who led the JSE from 2012 to 2019, is a corporate finance and securities regulation lawyer. At the JSE, she implemented the bourse’s Socially Responsible Investment Index, the first index of its type globally, said AngloGold.
She is currently a non-executive director of MTN Group, a telecoms company as well as a non-executive director of Investec. She is also the Chair of the Council of Stellenbosch University and a trustee of the Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre.
AngloGold is chasing a rerating and is hoping its access to the Swix, Russell 2000 and CRSP indices will attract new investors. Its timing couldn’t have been better as the gold price is motoring amid geopolitical distress and de-dollarisation of reserves by central banks, especially China’s.
The gold price hit a new record peak of $2,487.40 in August Comex futures and is currently trading at a spot price of $2,474/oz. This is good news for emerging market currencies, including South African gold producers which today saw a new record local price of R1.447m per kilogram.
