Anglo American makes ‘significant progress’ towards platinum division demerger

Anglo American has announced that it has made "significant progress" towards its demerger of Anglo American Platinum.

The platinum division announced its final dividend of around $900m (£714.9m) at the end of 2024, which will be paid to shareholders ahead of the demerger.

Anglo American, which owns a 67% stake in the platinum division, will therefore receive approximately $600m (£476.6m) from the dividends.

The firm has added that it intends to seek shareholder approval for the demerger of Anglo American Platinum at the time of its annual general meeting on 30 April 2025.

Following this, the platinum division will seek a primary listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, with an additional listing in London.

Chief executive at Anglo America, Duncan Wanblad, said: "Consistent with our commitment to deliver a responsible demerger, Anglo American intends to retain a 19.9% shareholding in Anglo American Platinum in order to further help manage flowback by reducing the absolute size of the shareholding that will be demerged.

"Anglo American will no longer have any representation on the Anglo American Platinum board post demerger and we intend to exit our residual shareholding responsibly over time, and subject to customary lock-up arrangements."

Investment director at AJ Bell, Russ Mould, concluded: "Anglo American has been busily transforming the business and it has firmed up plans for the demerger of its platinum arm, in which it has a 67% stake.

"Shareholders now have a clear picture for how the process will work and there’s some additional good news that the wider group will benefit from a chunky dividend payment before the demerger takes place. The newly demerged entity will have a primary listing in Johannesburg but also a secondary listing in London too. The timeline is ambitious with plans for the process to complete in June after a vote in April.

"Tellingly, Anglo intends to ‘responsibly’ exit its remaining shareholding in the platinum business over time. Demand for platinum metals is still closely tied to use in catalytic converters, so the shift to electric vehicles represents a structural hit to demand."



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