AngloGold Ashanti will make a permanent CEO appointment as soon as possible as it pursues its unaltered strategy of internal growth, strict debt discipline and higher returns to shareholders, says new chair Maria Ramos.
In her first interview in the position overseeing the board of the world’s third-largest gold miner by production, Ramos, who spent a decade as CEO of Absa, conceded the quick-fire resignations of CEO Kelvin Dushnisky, whose departure was announced in July after a mere two years in the job, and chair Sipho Pityana were uncomfortable for investors.
Ramos, who has previously run Transnet and is a former Treasury director-general, was announced as Pityana’s replacement earlier in December.
“I completely understand the fact that you have the CEO departing and then five months later the chair resigns, that these are not comfortable things for shareholders, but we have demonstrated we have depth inside the company at the executive levels and non-executive level around the board table for the company to continue to deliver its strategy and to remain intact,” she told Business Day.
Uncomfortable
“As uncomfortable as these things are because of the short timeline between the one event and the other, we are focused now on ensuring we can move forward and deliver on our strategy and remain on the growth path for the company [which] has top-quality assets and options,” she said.
One of the most pressing tasks for the board is to find a replacement for Dushnisky, who carried out the strategy of disposing of all of AngloGold in SA, having been once the country’s biggest gold miner, and the Sadiola mine in Mali during his brief tenure.
“We’ll make that appointment at the right time. It’s a very important decision for any board.
“We have started the process and we obviously want to do it as quickly as possible, but we’re cognisant that we need to get absolutely the right person,” Ramos said. "It’s about getting the balance between time and quality right so we get the best person.”
AngloGold CFO Christine Ramon is serving as the
interim CEO.
Primary listing
Asked whether the shift to a purely international portfolio and the pipeline of growth projects that AngloGold has would require a CEO with international experience and one with a history of building new mines, Ramos said: “We are looking for someone who has the right leadership qualities, skills, experience and understands value creation and values for a group that’s global.”
For shareholders and potential investors, one of the pressing questions is whether AngloGold will move its primary listing away from Johannesburg, something that Dushnisky had said would be considered when the time was right.
Ramos said the company had not had any discussions with the government during 2020 on moving its listing, but this would be something the board would consider in the future.
Asked about a discount in AngloGold’s share price when compared with its international peers, Ramos said the disposal of the SA mines had gone a long way to tackling this and if there were any residual concerns that meant the company was not trading at its full potential the board would consider how to deal with these.
“For now, our strategy is really focused on growth. We’ve not made any other strategic decisions as of yet. We will cross that bridge when we get to it about the future and whether our domicile needs to change or not. Our destiny will be dictated and shaped by our opportunities and growth requirements.”
One way to deal with the discount, which factors in the risk of SA exposure, was to deliver on a clearly articulated growth strategy. “If there is an SA discount inherent in the share price, then we can address that at the right time, but that must not become a proxy for not delivering on our strategy and for not maximising the value of the asset base we have,” she said.
“We don’t have assets in SA. We are located here. Our asset base is pretty well distributed around the world. If there is a residual and that residual is an SA discount, then we have to face up to that and deal with it.”
The sale of the SA assets has left the company’s balance sheet in good shape. By the end of the interim period in June 2020, it had nearly $1.3bn (R19.3bn) of cash, up from $456m at the end of 2019. By the end of September, AngloGold’s cash was boosted by a $200m payment from Harmony Gold for its SA assets, a one-third increase in the gold price and lower costs.
AngloGold wants to deliver the replanned and rebuilt Obuasi mine in Ghana as a 400,000oz a year gold mine, moving steadily from the second phase into the third phase of that project, Ramos said.
Concurrently, the company is working on feasibility studies at its two prospects in Colombia that promise to be the new gold mines in the company.
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