Anglo American AGM - address to shareholders
Summary by AI BETAClose X
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29 April 2026 |
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AGM 2026 - Address to Shareholders |
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Anglo American plc held its Annual General Meeting for shareholders in London today. The following remarks were made by the Chair and the Chief Executive Officer.
Stuart Chambers, Chair of Anglo American plc, made the following remarks:
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Anglo American's 2026 Annual General Meeting.
Notice of this meeting was published to shareholders on 23 March 2026, and a quorum is present. I therefore declare this meeting duly constituted. Have I your permission to take the Notice of Meeting as read and formally propose the resolutions set out in the Notice? Thank you.
I will now introduce the members of your Board who join me here today. Starting on my far left are Anne Wade, Marcelo Bastos and Ian Ashby, three of our independent non-executive directors. Next to Ian is John Heasley, our Chief Financial Officer, and next to him is Duncan Wanblad, our Chief Executive Officer. To my immediate right is Richard Price, our Chief Legal & Corporate Affairs Officer and Company Secretary, and then Ian Tyler our Senior Independent Director. Next to Ian are independent non-executive directors Nonkululeko Nyembezi and Magali Anderson. Unfortunately, Hilary Maxson, our Audit Committee chair, was unable to travel to London this week, but she is following the live broadcast of the meeting. All other Audit Committee members are present here today.
Ensuring we have the right mix of skills, experience and diversity at Board level that reflects the breadth of our business is critical to effective governance.
You can find the biographies for each director in our Notice of AGM and I trust that you agree with me in noting the high calibre and diverse experience of our Board members. Later, I will be asking you to vote on the usual annual re-election of myself and all other directors.
As you will know, your Board has considered the governance arrangements for the combined company that will take effect following completion of the merger of Anglo American and Teck - that will be called Anglo Teck plc. In September 2025 we announced the executive directors of Anglo Teck plc, with Sheila Murray to serve as Chair of Anglo Teck upon completion. At or prior to completion, Anglo American and Teck will each nominate for appointment 50% of the non-executive directors of the Anglo Teck plc board. The composition of the Board in full will therefore be announced in due course.
Now, before I ask Duncan Wanblad, our Chief Executive Officer, to give you an overview of last year's performance, allow me to share some of my perspectives on your company, Anglo American.
Despite the volatility in the world around us, we made great strides in 2025 to ensure that Anglo American is a more agile and resilient business, and one that is focused squarely on safe, stable and responsible operations. The progress to simplify our own portfolio, in parallel with advancing our merger with Teck at some pace - and with such overwhelming shareholder support - highlights the determination and energy with which we have been repositioning Anglo American to the forefront of our industry in terms of value-accretive growth.
So, let me now turn to performance for 2025, and starting, as always, with safety …
I commend the management team and our entire workforce for continued safety progress, again recording our lowest ever total recordable injury frequency rate. These year-on-year improvements are not by chance and are instead the result of determined and sustained effort. With that said, I am of course deeply saddened that we did lose two colleagues during 2025.
A death is always a terrible loss, and we are wholly committed to stopping our people from getting hurt at work. Be in no doubt that we cannot and will not rest in our efforts to reach our goal of zero harm.
2025 was a highly consequential year for the future of our business. In September, we announced our agreement to combine Anglo American and Teck to form Anglo Teck - a global mining leader and one of the world's largest copper producers with considerable growth available.
I am exceptionally proud of the excellent groundwork by Duncan and the leadership team to position the business to take this strategic and highly value-accretive step, bringing together the very best of two companies which draw on a set of complementary capabilities and values nurtured over long and proud histories. I was then of course delighted that we received such emphatic support from shareholders of both companies in December, with regulatory approval from the Government of Canada received shortly thereafter, and we continue to secure other approvals.
Through the merger to establish Anglo Teck, be assured that your Board has every confidence that we are propelling the combined entity to the forefront of our industry in terms of value-accretive growth in responsibly produced critical minerals, and we continue to progress this formidable combination towards completion.
When I spoke to you this time last year, I outlined our plans to unlock the significant potential from our outstanding world-class asset base in three product groups - namely copper, premium iron ore and crop nutrients. As we have said time and again, we see these as the future-enabling products supplying into the three major structural trends of decarbonisation, improving living standards, and food security, and we expect them to support our business' success for decades to come.
We have continued to build on this momentum, progressing our portfolio transformation over the course of 2025, in parallel with the merger agreement. This included the responsible demerger of our PGMs business (Anglo American Platinum, now Valterra Platinum) in May, as planned.
We have also moved ahead with the sale process for our Steelmaking Coal business following Peabody's decision not to proceed with the previously agreed transaction, while we also continue to focus on the safe ramp-up of the Moranbah North mine. We are working towards completing the sale of our Nickel business, while the separation of our iconic diamond business, De Beers, is progressing.
In a year characterised by volatile markets and slow economic recovery in China, and with weaker iron ore prices and cyclically low diamond prices, Anglo American delivered a stable operating and financial performance during the year.
Combined with the strategic progress we are making with the portfolio and a committed $1.8 billion of cost savings, we delivered a far stronger return for shareholders, with a Total Shareholder Return (TSR) for the year of 44%, ahead of the FTSE 100 Index at 35% and the FTSE 350 Mining Index at 41%. In line with our payout-based dividend policy, the Board has recommended a final dividend of $0.16 per share, in line with our policy of paying out 40% of underlying earnings, bringing total cash dividends for the year to $0.23 per share or $0.2 billion.
Let us also remember that shortly following the completion of our merger with Teck, we will be paying out a $4.5 billion special dividend to Anglo American's shareholders.
On behalf of the Board, I commend the entire leadership team and all our employees, led by Duncan, for an exceptional year of strategic delivery on so many fronts, underpinned by unwavering resilience and commitment.
I am also very pleased that our shareholders have stood to benefit from considerable returns as the inherent value of Anglo American is brought to the fore both through our portfolio optimisation, where we have made great progress, and through the long-term growth optionality and delivery capabilities that we intend to embed as we form Anglo Teck.
Duncan, over to you.
Duncan Wanblad, Chief Executive Officer of Anglo American plc, made the following remarks:
Thank you, Stuart and good morning, everyone.
As usual, I will also start with our number one value and first priority, which is always safety.
As Stuart acknowledged, we have made good progress in our safety journey, with a continuation of the downward trend in injury frequency, recording our lowest ever rate in 2025. However, we are all profoundly saddened by the two tragic fatalities of two colleagues following accidents in Brazil and Zimbabwe last year. It is simply unacceptable and I assure you that we are relentless in our efforts to create a workplace where everyone returns home safely.
Let me now turn to the defining milestone we achieved for our company in 2025: the merger agreement to form Anglo Teck. The agreement we announced in September marked a pivotal moment in our long history - a compelling combination that is designed to unlock significant value both in the near and long term, while offering, you, our shareholders more than 70% exposure to copper.
We have progressed the merger with pace - having received Investment Canada Act approval in December, following overwhelming support from both companies' shareholders - and we continue to secure key regulatory approvals to advance towards completion either later this year or early next.
In parallel with the merger to form a critical minerals champion in Anglo Teck, we continued to deliver our own strategic priorities of operational excellence, portfolio optimisation and growth.
On our portfolio in particular, we have made great strides to implement changes to unlock the inherent value within each of our product verticals. In May, we completed the demerger of the majority of our interest in Valterra Platinum to our shareholders, as planned, and in September we monetised our residual 19.9% interest for $2.5 billion in cash. In January 2025, we completed the sale of our minority interest in Jellinbah to Zashvin for $0.9 billion in proceeds as part of our Steelmaking Coal business divestment.
While we were very disappointed that Peabody decided not to complete the previously agreed transaction for the balance of this business, we expect that we will successfully reach an alternative sales agreement for value in 2026.
For our Nickel business, we are progressing the agreed sale transaction with MMG through regulatory approval, while the work to separate De Beers continues, with action under way to strengthen cash flow and position the business for long-term.
Now to reflect on our operational performance and financials from the year.
I am particularly delighted with the strong performance at our Copper and Premium Iron Ore businesses. Both delivered on their 2025 production plans and saw improved underlying EBITDA, contributing $4.0 billion and $2.9 billion, respectively. The combined EBITDA of this simplified business therefore increased to $6.9 billion at a 44% margin, with return on capital employed higher at 17%.
Reflecting robust cost control in an ongoing inflationary environment, we also achieved our targeted $1.8 billion cost savings run-rate while continuing to strengthen our balance sheet, driven by the early proceeds from our portfolio optimisation and our continued focus on cash conversion.
Our $0.2 billion total cash dividend of $0.23 per share is in line with our 40% payout policy.
Our project development and delivery capabilities are the foundation of how we expect to create value from our growth pipeline. Our approach to project development is a holistic one, integrating sustainability with our technical expertise to both successfully deliver the significant growth options in our portfolio and realise our sustainability and broader business ambitions.
To this end, we recently updated our Sustainability Strategy - still underpinned by the three familiar themes that have shaped our approach since 2018: building trust as a corporate leader, contributing to a healthy environment, and helping create thriving communities. But just as we as a business and the world around us have evolved, so we have adopted a more tailored approach: one which accommodates distinct local contexts and balances global targets with business-specific targets, recognising that one size rarely fits all.
This has been a pivotal year for the future of our business both in terms of simplifying our portfolio and delivering long-term value-accretive growth through the transformation merger to create Anglo Teck.
The rapid progress we are making towards delivering this highly attractive combination is down to the sheer calibre of our teams. Together, we are taking the next strategic step to accelerate our growth, designed to unlock significant value for our many stakeholders for decades to come.
Thank you.
Following a number of questions from shareholders and their proxies, Stuart Chambers closed the meeting, by adding:
The final results will be announced to the stock exchanges later this afternoon and will be published on our website. Details of the proxy votes already received for each resolution are shown on the screen behind me.
I am pleased to say that we have received strong support for all 21 resolutions based on the shares already voted that represent approximately 63% of the share capital.
That concludes the business of this meeting. Thank you all for your attendance today and I now declare the meeting closed.
Check against delivery.
For further information, please contact:
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Media |
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Investors |
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UK James Wyatt-Tilby james.wyatt-tilby@angloamerican.com Tel: +44 (0)20 7968 8759
Marcelo Esquivel marcelo.esquivel@angloamerican.com Tel: +44 (0)20 7968 8891
Rebecca Meeson-Frizelle rebecca.meeson-frizelle@angloamerican.com Tel: + 44 (0)20 7968 1374
South Africa Nevashnee Naicker nevashnee.naicker@angloamerican.com Tel: +27 (0)11 638 3189
Ernest Mulibana Tel: +27 82 263 7372
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UK Tyler Broda tyler.broda@angloamerican.com Tel: +44 (0)20 7968 1470
Michelle West-Russell michelle.west-russell@angloamerican.com Tel: +44 (0)20 7968 1494
Wade Haggarty wade.haggarty@angloamerican.com Tel: +44 (0)20 7968 1464
Nathan Morgan nathan.morgan@angloamerican.com Tel: +44 (0)20 7968 2154 |
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Notes:
Anglo American is a leading global mining company focused on the responsible production of copper, premium iron ore and crop nutrients - future-enabling products that are essential for decarbonising the global economy, improving living standards, and food security. Our portfolio of world-class operations and outstanding mineral endowments offers value-accretive growth potential across all three businesses, positioning us to deliver into structurally attractive major demand growth trends.
Our integrated approach to sustainability and innovation drives our decision-making across the value chain, from how we discover new resources to how we mine, process, move and market our products to our customers - safely, efficiently and responsibly. Our Sustainability Strategy commits us to a series of stretching goals over different time horizons to ensure we build trust as a corporate leader, contribute to a healthy environment and help create thriving communities. We work together with our business partners and diverse stakeholders to unlock enduring value from precious natural resources for our shareholders, for the benefit of the communities and countries in which we operate, and for society as a whole. Anglo American is re-imagining mining to improve people's lives.
Anglo American is currently implementing a number of major structural changes to unlock the inherent value in its portfolio and thereby accelerate delivery of its strategic priorities of Operational excellence, Portfolio optimisation, and Growth. The sale of our steelmaking coal and nickel businesses and the separation of our iconic diamond business (De Beers) continue to progress and once completed, will focus Anglo American on its world-class resource asset base in copper, premium iron ore and crop nutrients.
Group terminology
In this document, references to "Anglo American", the "Anglo American Group", the "Group", "we", "us", and "our" are to refer to either Anglo American plc and its subsidiaries and/or those who work for them generally, or where it is not necessary to refer to a particular entity, entities or persons. The use of those generic terms herein is for convenience only, and is in no way indicative of how the Anglo American Group or any entity within it is structured, managed or controlled. Anglo American subsidiaries, and their management, are responsible for their own day-to-day operations, including but not limited to securing and maintaining all relevant licences and permits, operational adaptation and implementation of Group policies, management, training and any applicable local grievance mechanisms. Anglo American produces group-wide policies and procedures to ensure best uniform practices and standardisation across the Anglo American Group but is not responsible for the day to day implementation of such policies. Such policies and procedures constitute prescribed minimum standards only. Group operating subsidiaries are responsible for adapting those policies and procedures to reflect local conditions where appropriate, and for implementation, oversight and monitoring within their specific businesses.
Disclaimer: This document has been prepared by Anglo American plc ("Anglo American"). By reviewing this document you agree to be bound by the following conditions. The release, presentation, publication or distribution of this document, in whole or in part, in certain jurisdictions may be restricted by law or regulation and persons into whose possession this document comes should inform themselves about, and observe, any such restrictions.
This document is for information purposes only and does not constitute, nor is to be construed as, an offer to sell or the recommendation, solicitation, inducement or offer to buy, subscribe for or sell shares in Anglo American or any other securities by Anglo American or any other party. Further, it should not be treated as giving investment, legal, accounting, regulatory, taxation or other advice and has no regard to the specific investment or other objectives, financial situation or particular needs of any recipient.
No representation or warranty, either express or implied, is provided, nor is any duty of care, responsibility or liability assumed, in each case in relation to the accuracy, completeness or reliability of the information contained herein. None of Anglo American or each of its affiliates, advisors or representatives shall have any liability whatsoever (in negligence or otherwise) for any loss or damage of whatever nature, howsoever arising, from any use of, or reliance on, this material or otherwise arising in connection with this material.
Forward-looking statements and third party information
This document includes forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements of historical fact included in this document may be forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, those regarding Anglo American's financial position, business, acquisition and divestment strategy, dividend policy, plans and objectives of management for future operations, prospects and projects (including development plans and objectives relating to Anglo American's products, production forecasts and Ore Reserve and Mineral Resource positions), the anticipated benefits of mergers and acquisitions (including any assessment or quantification of potential synergies) and sustainability performance related (including environmental, social and governance) goals, ambitions, targets, visions, milestones and aspirations. Forward-looking statements may be identified by the use of words such as "believe", "expect", "intend", "aim", "project", "anticipate", "estimate", "plan", "may", "should", "will", "target" and words of similar meaning. By their nature, such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Anglo American or industry results to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.
Such forward-looking statements are based on numerous assumptions regarding Anglo American's present and future business strategies and the environment in which Anglo American will operate in the future. Important factors that could cause Anglo American's actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements include, among others, levels of actual production during any period, levels of global demand and product prices, unanticipated downturns in business relationships with customers or their purchases from Anglo American, mineral resource exploration and project development capabilities and delivery, recovery rates and other operational capabilities, safety, health or environmental incidents, the ability to identify, consummate and integrate pending or potential acquisitions, disposals, investments, mergers, demergers, syndications, joint ventures or other transactions, the effects of global pandemics and outbreaks of infectious diseases, the impact of attacks from third parties on our information systems, natural catastrophes or adverse geological conditions, climate change and extreme weather events, the outcome of litigation or regulatory proceedings, the availability of mining and processing equipment, the ability to obtain key inputs in a timely manner, the ability to produce and transport products profitably, the availability of necessary infrastructure (including transportation) services, the development, efficacy and adoption of new or competing technology, challenges in realising resource estimates or discovering new economic mineralisation, the impact of foreign currency exchange rates on market prices and operating costs, the availability of sufficient credit, liquidity and counterparty risks, the effects of inflation, terrorism, war, conflict, political or civil unrest, uncertainty, tensions and disputes and economic and financial conditions around the world, evolving societal and stakeholder requirements and expectations, shortages of skilled employees, unexpected difficulties relating to acquisitions or divestitures, competitive pressures and the actions of competitors, activities by courts, regulators and governmental authorities such as in relation to permitting or forcing closure of mines and ceasing of operations or maintenance of Anglo American's assets and changes in taxation or safety, health, environmental or other types of regulation in the countries where Anglo American operates, conflicts over land and resource ownership rights and such other risk factors identified in Anglo American's most recent Annual Report. Forward-looking statements should therefore be construed in light of such risk factors, and undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this document. Anglo American expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking (except as required by applicable law, rules or regulations) to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statement contained herein to reflect any change in Anglo American's expectations with regard thereto or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based.
Nothing in this document should be interpreted to mean that future earnings per share of Anglo American will necessarily match or exceed its historical published earnings per share. Certain statistical and other information included in this document is sourced from third party sources (including, but not limited to, externally conducted studies and trials). As such it has not been independently verified and presents the views of those third parties, but may not necessarily correspond to the views held by Anglo American and Anglo American expressly disclaims any responsibility for, or liability in respect of, such information.
No Investment Advice
This document has been prepared without reference to your particular investment objectives, financial situation, taxation position and particular needs. It is important that you view this document in its entirety. If you are in any doubt in relation to these matters, you should consult your stockbroker, bank manager, solicitor, accountant, taxation adviser or other independent financial adviser (where applicable, as authorised under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 in the UK, or in South Africa, under the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act 37 of 2002 or under any other applicable legislation).
Alternative Performance Measures
Throughout this document a range of financial and non-financial measures are used to assess our performance, including a number of financial measures that are not defined or specified under IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards), which are termed 'Alternative Performance Measures' (APMs). Management uses these measures to monitor the Group's financial performance alongside IFRS measures to improve the comparability of information between reporting periods and businesses. These APMs should be considered in addition to, and not as a substitute for, or as superior to, measures of financial performance, financial position or cash flows reported in accordance with IFRS. APMs are not uniformly defined by all companies, including those in the Group's industry. Accordingly, it may not be comparable with similarly titled measures and disclosures by other companies.
©Anglo American Services (UK) Ltd 2026. 
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