Mining giant Anglo American has completed the sale of its minority interest in Jellinbah for A$1.6bn, it said on Wednesday.
The group sold its 33.3% interest in Jellinbah Group, a joint venture that owns a 70% interest in the Jellinbah East and Lake Vermont steelmaking coal mines in Australia, to Zashvin.
Under the terms of the transaction, Anglo received A$1.4bn in addition to the A$228m already received, bringing total cash proceeds to A$1.6bn, or about $1bn.
The agreement for the sale of Anglo’s interest in Jellinbah was announced in November last year, with completion originally expected in the second quarter of 2025.
Zashvin was an existing 33.33% shareholder in Jellinbah, alongside Anglo and Marubeni. Anglo did not operate the Jellinbah Group mines, nor did it market any of the production volumes from the Jellinbah Group mines.
“We are pleased to complete this first step in the divestment of our steelmaking coal portfolio, realising $1bn of cash proceeds sooner than expected, further strengthening our balance sheet,” said Anglo American CEO Duncan Wanblad,
“We have also made good progress towards the completion of the sale of the balance of our steelmaking coal portfolio to Peabody for additional cash consideration of up to $3.8bn.
“We have moved at pace to simplify Anglo American to create an exciting and differentiated investment proposition focused on our world-class copper, premium iron ore and crop nutrients businesses. This more cash generative and higher margin portfolio will offer greater through-the-cycle resilience, with the benefit of significant high quality and well sequenced growth options across each product vertical, including a clear path to increase annual copper production to more than one million tonnes over the next decade.”
Last year, Anglo rebuffed a R700bn-plus buyout offer from mining behemoth BHP. Wanblad countered the offer in May by proposing a portfolio transformation plan to increase shareholder returns by offloading Anglo’s steelmaking coal, platinum group metals and nickel businesses, along with diamond business De Beers.
Anglo is in the process of demerging the platinum business as part of the simplification of its portfolio and in November raised R9.6bn from its accelerated bookbuild offering of shares in Anglo American Platinum (Amplats).
Anglo American SA sold 17.5-million Amplats shares, representing about 6.6% of the miner’s total issued ordinary share capital, at R548 per share.
“The demerger of Anglo American Platinum is on track for completion by the middle of 2025 and on this basis Anglo American does not intend to execute a further market sell-down of its holding ahead of that,” Anglo said in a statement at the time of the Amplats deal.
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