AngloGold Ashanti has more than doubled its value over the past two years as it continues its journey to close the valuation gap between it and its bigger international rivals.
To this end, the group in 2023 moved its headquarters and primary listing to the US in a bid to close the gap with larger rivals in Northern America such as Newmont Corporation and Barrick Gold.
The group, led by Alberto Calderon, was worth R437bn on the JSE on Friday, where it has a secondary listing. That is more than double the R206bn valuation in May 2023 when it announced plans to move its primary listing to New York to attract a bigger investor share base and enhance the liquidity of its shares.
As the world’s fourth-largest producer of gold the surge in the price of bullion over the past 18 months has aided the rally in the group’s shares, which have more than doubled in value so far in 2025 and are up 241% over the past three years.
The company was formed in 2004 by the merger of AngloGold — formerly the gold portfolio of Anglo American — and Ghana’s Ashanti Goldfields Corporation.
The surge in the price of gold has completed the company’s strategic moves to actively manage its portfolio by closing and selling assets and finding, developing and buying others.
The mining company, which began its transformation with a revised operating model in 2022, has over the past three years focused on upgrading the quality of its portfolio, “with an absolute focus on capital discipline and a long-term focus on value creation for shareholders” as part of an ongoing process to close the value gap with its peers.
The move to the US, championed by Calderon and former chair Maria Ramos, is set to yield more benefits with the group’s imminent inclusion in the Russell 3000 and other Russell indices, as part of the latest FTSE Russell 2025 US Indexes reconstitution.
The group’s final index membership is expected to become effective after the US market closes on Friday, marking a milestone for the company and further increasing its liquidity and unlocking long-term value for shareholders.
The reconstitution of the Russell US Indexes ranks the 4,000 largest US stocks by market capitalisation to reflect changes in the investable equity market with 2025’s rebalance expected to drive more than $53bn in passive investment flows.
Robbie Proctor, resource analyst at Anchor Capital, said AngloGold’s US listing has helped with the company’s rating relative to US-listed peers, though the real driver of its outperformance has been the move down the gold mining cost curve.
“The Centamin acquisition in Egypt late last year was well timed and AngloGold's recent sales of mines have demonstrated rare restraint in an industry predisposed to capacity expansions during high price environments,” Proctor said.
“The real benefit from the US listing is expected to come through on June 27, when the company will be included in the Russell 3000 and Russell 1000 indexes. The inflows from its inclusion are significant and likely to improve the company’s relative valuation rating,” he said.
“AngloGold emerged from the issues experienced at the Obuasi mine a couple of years ago, improving all-in sustaining costs [the cost of sustaining current mining operations], making savvy acquisitions and building a strong brownfields pipeline, particularly in Nevada.”
While it has withdrawn from the SA market, where the group has its roots, Africa is still a big drawcard, with six of its operations on the continent, and boots on the ground in Egypt, Ghana, Guinea and Tanzania. The group has a joint venture in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is managed by Barrick.
AngloGold sold its last SA asset, Mponeng mine, to Harmony Gold in 2020, ending an era that dates back more than a century when it was part of the Anglo American stable.
The company’s management has been adept at exploration activities, with its total gold mineral reserves increasing before depletion for seven consecutive years — in the year ended December 2024.
This excludes the addition of Centamin, whose acquisition represents a corporate milestone for the group.
AngloGold’s greenfield exploration projects are under way in Tanzania and at its newly acquired assets in Egypt (Centamin), while brownfield exploration is conducted at all the African operations. The company also has greenfield exploration in Argentina, Australia, the US and Brazil.
The $2.5bn deal to buy Centamin, the owner of Egypt’s largest gold mine, Sukari, was completed in November.
The deal was the group’s first major transaction in more than two decades. In March it sold its stakes in two gold projects in Ivory Coast to Australian-listed Resolute Mining for $185m.
The mining major, which declared $439m dividends in the 2024 financial year, up from $95m in the previous year, is in a strong financial position to pursue growth initiatives.
Its balance sheet remained in a strong position after the funding of all capital expenditure, the previous dividend payment and the cash portion of the Centamin acquisition.
In the 2024 financial year, it reported a nine-fold increase in free cash flow to $942m while adjusted net debt was $567m.
The adjusted net debt to adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation & amortisation ratio was 0.21 times, the lowest since 2011. At year end, about $2.6bn in liquidity was available, including cash and cash equivalents of $1.4bn, its financial statements show.
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