Anglo American does U-turn on sell-off plan
CEO Mark Cutifani added that the company had exceeded its debt reduction target
It was only this time last year that Anglo American CEO Mark Cutifani announced that the company, hurting because of low metal prices, planned a dramatic asset sell-off that would leave it with just 16 mines. In February last year, Cutifani gave a detailed plan of what the sale of Anglo's "non-core" assets would entail. Those to be sold included iron ore, coal, manganese and nickel - everything except its diamond, copper and platinum operations. But now, with commodity prices and the company's share price surging, Anglo has signalled a U-turn, and Cutifani will keep more assets than originally planned. He said in an interview this week that the UK-listed company was happy and comfortable with the assets it was retaining. These now included nickel, metallurgical coal and iron ore operations. "We don't use the term 'core' or 'non-core' [anymore] because it made people believe that they [assets] didn't belong and that's not really true, they actually do belong," he said. "So we've chan...
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