The world will need platinum group metals for a long time and though Anglo American CEO Duncan Wanblad continues to be “a big platinum bull” he says he is thrilled at Valterra Platinum’s strong performance on the market since Anglo spun out its stake in the platinum producer in May.
“The Anglo American shareholders were never seeing the full value of those assets,” said Wanblad. “Now you’re seeing both stocks rerate….
“Clearly there’s a bit of a win with the commodity price but what you’ve seen is a fundamental rerating of both Anglo American and Valterra,” he said after Anglo posted a $1.8bn loss for the six months to end-June in what Wanblad described as a “rather complicated set of numbers”.
The unbundling of Valterra (the former Anglo American Platinum) was part of a far-reaching streamlining of Anglo’s portfolio that the group embarked on in May 2024 during BHP’s ultimately failed hostile bid for Anglo.
Ahead of the announcement of the strategy — which will trim its portfolio to just copper, iron ore and fertiliser — Anglo was trading at between three and four times enterprise value to ebitda, which is the group’s preferred metric of how the market values it.
“Today we’re north of six and a half times EV to ebitda. So that’s a material rerating of the business,” said Wanblad. Anglo had traded at a material discount to the sum of its parts, probably almost since it listed in London in 1999, and that was a difficult way to grow a business, he said.
Today we’re north of six and a half times EV to ebitda. So that’s a material rerating of the business.
— Duncan WanbladAnglo American CEO
The group has sold its nickel and steelmaking coal businesses and Wanblad still expects the coal sale to US coal group Peabody to proceed despite the suspension of operations at Moranbah in Australia.
Divesting Anglo’s 85% of De Beers is expected to take longer due to the weak state of the diamond market. Anglo will look at a listing if it can’t find a suitable buyer but Wanblad continues to prefer a trade sale.
He said Anglo was now in the first formal stage of the process to understand the interest and get nonbinding offers in the next few months before deciding whether they are the right potential buyers at the right price for the De Beers business — and can be good partners to the government of Botswana, which owns 15% of De Beers.
Botswana’s mining minister recently told the Financial Times that her government wanted to buy out Anglo, putting question marks over the auction process.
Wanblad confirmed on Thursday that the Botswana government had clearly expressed its interest in increasing its stake — and that Anglo was engaging with them and their advisers on that process, and as it goes through the process with other bidders.
“Whoever takes our stake, or a combination of parties take our stake, ultimately [we] have to have a really happy existence with the government of Botswana…
“It’s crucial that all of our potential buyers recognise that and we’re keen to make that happen,” Wanblad said.
The group continues to work in parallel to set up De Beers for a potential listing, which would take longer than a sale because it would depend on market conditions.
Anglo has held on to 19.9% of Valterra and will exit that responsibly over time.
Wanblad said there was no major rush but Anglo would start to reduce its stake when market conditions were appropriate.
Correction: August 1 2025
A previous version of this story incorrectly referred to Botswana’s mining minister as a man.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.