It is tough to be a miner when the only material investors care about is silicon. As markets around the world race higher, fuelled by Nvidia’s blowout results and a mounting AI frenzy, mining chiefs are left making their pitch that — well, actually — the commodities of the future are the metals needed for electric vehicles and renewable energy.
As much as Anglo American maintains the metals it produces such as platinum and nickel are “critical in enabling . . . sustainable green solutions”, the mining sector has been feeling decidedly old economy of late. Prices of these industrial metals have fallen sharply in the past couple of years. In its full-year results on Thursday, the miner said it would rethink its portfolio.
Duncan Wanblad, after almost two years as chief executive, must wonder what has hit him. Anglo’s share price, including dividends, has trailed its large London-listed peers by at least 50 percentage points. Despite healthy ebitda improvement in its iron ore and copper divisions Anglo’s ebitda fell nearly a third in 2023 to $10.2bn.