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The chief executive of Anglo American on Thursday said it is not “inevitable” a new buyer for the group will emerge after it has sold off four major parts of its business following BHP’s failed £39bn takeover attempt.
Duncan Wanblad played down the prospects a suitor will make a bid after it accelerated plans to slim down the group following the hostile move by its Australian rival, which collapsed in May.
He intends to offload Anglo’s De Beers diamond arm, coal, nickel and platinum units, that will leave a copper, iron ore and fertiliser business at the end of the process.
Speaking at the Joburg Indaba mining conference, Wanblad said even though Anglo will earn 60 per cent of its revenue from copper, this would not necessarily make it irresistible for potential buyers, as some analysts had speculated.
“I don’t believe this is inevitable at all,” he said. “To the extent that we are valued in the context of the sum of our parts and fully valued, we will be a very viable, standalone company.”
Wanblad said the company is still on track to finalise the restructuring by next year, but cannot predict what will happen after that.
“I cannot say what other people are going to do from a corporate action point of view and I don’t really care about that — what I care about is delivering on the strategy,” he said.
This underscored the sentiment he expressed last week at the Financial Times Mining Summit in London, where he said that should Anglo become a takeover target, would-be buyers would need to “pay the right number” for the company.
Anglo’s stock price has fallen about 12 per cent since BHP made its takeover offer in April.
After the demerger, Anglo would be a much smaller operator, with a streamlined portfolio geared towards commodities that analysts say have much better prospects.
Wanblad said Anglo’s remaining businesses provide “a very compelling option on what the world is desperately going to need for decades to come”.
This view is shared by his rivals, such as BHP, that expect copper demand to surge in the coming years because it is a vital for the clean energy transition.
Anglo’s copper assets were central to BHP’s offer — and some experts expect it to make another bid for the company.
However, takeover rules specify a six-month cooling-off period, which means BHP cannot return with another offer until November 29.