GRAY MAGUIRE: Mining giants resort to pass-the-parcel with unwanted assets
Big miners demerge into smaller local empowerment companies onto which they dump devaluing units
Last week’s capitulation by Standard Bank CEO Sim Shabalala to investor pressure and the tides of history, with the bank committing to publish a Paris-aligned fossil fuel strategy for the 2021 period, could not come at a more interesting time. Left and right, investors are rushing for the door with their coal assets, resulting in the proliferation of ever-more-marginal mining companies.
From some pretty broad-ranging conversations over the past few weeks a consistent picture has emerged of a not-so-sleight-of-hand that sees big-ticket companies such as Anglo and BHP demerging to create ever-smaller local empowerment companies upon which they then dump their rapidly devaluing mining assets...
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