Anglo American share price: Miner’s biggest shareholder wants vote on sale plans

Anglo American’s (LON:AAL) biggest shareholder, South Africa’s Public Investment Corp (PIC), wants the miner’s plan to sell more than half of its mines put to a vote, Bloomberg has reported. The FTSE 100 group, which has been struggling with weak commodity prices alongside peers, is undergoing a restructuring that will see it focus around three core products, namely copper, diamonds and platinum.

Anglo American’s share price has slipped into the red in London this morning, having shed 0.74 percent to 782.90p as of 09:26 BST, underperforming the benchmark FTSE 100 index which has climbed into positive territory and currently stands 0.38 percent higher at 6,771.70 points. The group’s shares have gained some 14 percent over the past year, and are up by more than 161 percent in the year-to-date.
Bloomberg reported yesterday that PIC, Anglo American’s biggest shareholder with a 14.5-percent stake, was set to meet with the blue-chip miner next week to discuss whether its plan to sell more than half of its mines including local coal and iron-ore assets is the best option for the country. Deon Botha, the Pretoria-based PIC’s head of corporate affairs, told the newswire that the South African group wanted the sale plan put to a shareholder vote because it was concerned that selling mines after commodity prices plunged would not realise the full value of the assets.
Botha explained that if the disposal plan went ahead, PIC would prefer that the coal, iron ore and manganese mines up for sale be bundled with some of Anglo’s platinum mines. The news comes after reports suggested last month that PIC was pressuring the FTSE 100 miner to spin off its platinum business in South Africa.
“We are considering a number of options for divestment, whether as individual assets or as packages of assets, but will only divest for value and in the interests of all our shareholders,” Pranill Ramchander, a spokesman for Anglo American, told Bloomberg in an email.
As of 09:54 BST, Friday, 02 September, Anglo American plc share price is 776.35p.