Anglo American (LON:$AAL) — being a major producer of metals like diamonds, platinum, copper, and nickel — has just announced that Stuart Chambers, former chairman of UK’s software and chip designer Arm, will succeed Sir John Parker as chairman of the company. Chambers will be joining Anglo as a non-executive director in September before taking Parker’s place as chairman in November.
It is still uncertain if shareholders should be at ease, however, Chambers has had a variety of experiences, having held non-executive director positions at Smiths Group and Tesco. As such, investors should still take caution as Chambers is known for participating in the sale of multiple UK companies, including the sale of Arm, for which Chambers was chairman up until 2016, to Japan’s Softbank.
For the past two years, Anglo, the world’s fifth largest diversified miner, has suffered financial problems due to the downward spiral of metal prices, but Chambers won’t have to deal with them. In February, the company posted its first annual net profit in five years, and chief executive Mark Cutifani announced that the company no longer need to offload any more assets. With this news, it seems that Anglo is finally coming out of its financial struggles.
While Chambers is safe from dealing with the finance of Anglo, he has a big part in keeping Anglo out of financial problems by forming good relationships with the company’s shareholders. In particular, Chambers will need to maintain good working relations with one of Anglo’s newest investors, billionaire Anil Agarwal.
Founder of another diversified mining company, Vedanta (NYSE:$VEDL), Agarwal announced in March that he will be investing $2.4 billion in Anglo. This would give Volcan Investments, Agarwal’s family trust, a 12% stake in Anglo — making him the company’s second biggest investor.
Agarwal noted that although he is the chairman of Vedanta, he saw the investment to be done by Volcan and not Vedanta. He also added that he is not looking to gain control of Anglo. Nonetheless, the mining industry expects the investment by Agarwal to put pressure on Anglo American to deliver returns.
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