Anglo American plc (AAL) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and many thanks for joining us on what I believe is a really significant day in the future of Anglo American. I'm Duncan Wanblad, the Chief Executive of Anglo, and I'm joined by John Heasley, our Finance Director. There are 2 things that are very clear to me. The first is the enormous inherent value in this company, in its assets, its capabilities, its networks and its people across the world. It is also clear that to unlock the true potential of this company, we need profound change. Consistent with our purpose, we now need to re-imagine Anglo American. Therefore, today I'm setting out the detail of a comprehensive change agenda. The new Anglo American will be truly fit for the future and our shareholders can enjoy the full benefit of every step that we take, value realization from portfolio change, value delivery from a step change in efficiency and operational excellence, value transparency with 2 high quality businesses in copper and iron ore, in addition to Woodsmith, all of which have game-changing growth potential. Today is the culmination of many months of work on our strategic priorities of operational excellence, portfolio simplification and growth that we have talked about in some detail back in February. Operational excellence has been our priority and we have reset many of the mine plans across the business and we are now seeing a noticeable improvement in safety and in performance stability. We have also seen the benefits of our change to organizational design, which removed areas of role overlap and unnecessary layers, enhancing agility and accountability. The effectiveness of that initiative gives us real confidence in the benefits of a more transformational approach to our ability to deliver it. A more focused business will create even more accountability and greater performance transparency while still being able to leverage the benefits of technical excellence, innovation and industry leading sustainability performance that we have built in recent years. In that context, we went through the asset review process, and we concluded that the right approach is to execute a radical change agenda. I will come back and talk through the design principles of the new portfolio, but the conclusion is that we will focus on 7 high quality assets in 3 commodities: copper; premium iron ore; and crop nutrients. Steelmaking Coal, Anglo American Platinum and De Beers will be divested, or otherwise separated from the group in the right structure to maximize value. All of the businesses have outstanding growth potential and will be well placed to deliver into structurally attractive demand growth trends, notably, energy transition, the rise in living standards and food security. This re-imagination of Anglo American has been very thoughtful about how each area of the business is best able to thrive for the next generation. The new business has a really powerful investment case. Anglo American value proposition has always been asset-led, and it will continue to be the case. The new portfolio is much more focused, 3 commodities, 5 production assets, 2 great Greenfield opportunities housed in a simpler structure. The main focus of the group will be its world-class copper portfolio alongside a premium quality iron ore business, and the long-term potential of Woodsmith. Now that combination of commodity mix, asset quality and growth potential makes this one of the most attractive ways for investors globally to have exposure to future-enabling products. In addition to the proven production base, the new Anglo American will be a rare thing, a major mining company that has embedded value-accretive growth potential in every commodity vertical. We have already talked to our growth pathway in copper, which has a defined pathway to reach 1 million tonnes per annum. In addition, through the combination of Minas-Rio with the adjacent Serpentina deposit, we now have the potential to double production of high value DRI-grade iron ore at Minas-Rio and optimize the use of our combined infrastructure. We will also continue to hold Woodsmith, which we will progress to feasibility study as we continue to explore our partnering options. One of the persistent concerns about Anglo American in the past has been the variance in financial performance, but with an EBITDA margin that is almost 50% higher under the new portfolio, there will be a transformation in resilience. That can give investors confidence in sustainable returns alongside firm foundations to deliver the growth potential of the Group. This change, however, is not about shifting the same pieces into a different configuration. Instead, by simplifying the business there is real economic value creation. We have confidence in delivering a $1.7 billion reduction in our costs in the future in conjunction with these portfolio changes. I also believe that the step change in accountability and performance transparency will be really important in delivering against our first strategic priority, which is operational excellence. Finally, I am very confident that we have a clear pathway to deliver. We have the recent track record in delivering organizational change, and we have delivered many portfolio changes over the years. Indeed, I previously spent a few years spending most of my time creating value for Anglo American by restructuring non-core businesses. More importantly, as we move forward, we stand as one of the only major mining companies that have successfully delivered a Tier 1 Greenfield copper mine on time and on budget. We have leading sustainability credentials, well-established networks and a longstanding reputation as a responsible mining company across the regions that are likely to see most of the major development opportunities for the next generation. Therefore, this really is an exciting next generation mining company. We will have a strategic flexibility, open to few others in the industry. So how did we get here? As we've been going through the asset review process and thinking about portfolio simplification and improvement initiatives, we have approached it with 3 clear design principles. First and foremost, asset quality remains paramount. The focus is on the best assets, and we consider these in the context of the markets in which they operate. Secondly, we need to make sure that the portfolio as a whole has a strong industrial logic so that each asset and portfolio can deliver the full value potential. There are 3 key elements to that. Firstly, we need the organizational capabilities, particularly when it comes to technical and sustainability. Secondly, we need to think about efficiency and there's a balance here, too small and it risks compromising the ability to have the capabilities, but as you get larger and more complex, it can compromise costs, accountability and agility. Finally, capital allocation priorities need to be clear, with balance sheet capacity and cash flow to fund investment and returns. It is on the basis of these 3 elements that we define clear portfolio roles for each asset and manage them accordingly. If the first 2 elements can create the ideal portfolio on paper, the focus is on how you deliver that end state and how that translates to shareholder value. There are 3 components to that assessment: firstly; will the assets' potential get full value recognition from the market; secondly, what's the cost and the risk of getting from status quo to that end state and do those costs justify that change; and finally, how does this set up for the future in terms of strategic flexibility. It is a combination of these 3 principles that have led to the decisions we are announcing today, which deliver well against all of these criteria. Firstly, without exception, these are high quality assets that produce products with the most attractive long-term fundamentals. Secondly, the portfolio has a scale, coherence and a quality to deliver its full potential. To translate that into practical terms, we will have the team that built Quellaveco able to continue to deliver the future growth potential of Sakatti and Minas-Rio and Woodsmith, and we will have the balance sheet to make them a reality. In a much simpler portfolio, we will make the most of the opportunity for real value creation in simplifying the organization, while retaining critical capabilities required to deliver future growth in a responsible and a sustainable way. The $0.8 billion of cost outs that we are announcing today gives you a sense of the economic reality, but this is not about what we are cutting. This is about what we are creating. We are creating a more dynamic, less bureaucratic organization with a really exciting future. That is the message that I would want all of our stakeholders to take away from this. Finally, the portfolio has the key characteristics to enable much better shareholder value recognition. It's simple, yet it retains scale. It's well focused, yet it has a good balance of diversification across countries and assets. The underlying commodity exposure is uniformly attractive, and the new Anglo American should have significantly enhanced strategic flexibility going forward. There will be costs incurred, but we are confident that the enhanced value delivery significantly outweighs those costs. By implementing these changes ourselves, we can make sure that they are implemented in the right way and at the right time to maximize shareholder value. On the whole, we believe that shareholder value is maximized by getting to the end state as quickly as we can, but to be very clear, we are not a forced seller of any asset here, so in every decision we will safeguard shareholder value. The strategic and commercial logic for the changes that we are making is clear, but I would also like to clarify what this is not. And this is not a vote of no confidence in the businesses that will be exiting. This is not a comment on the quality of those business, but a recognition that the best way for them to thrive is through alternative ownership. In particular, I would like to pro-actively address the question as to why we have decided to separate Anglo American Platinum. As we look at those 3 design principles, Anglo Plats delivers strongly on the first 2. It has great assets with the ability to deliver value through the cycle and could definitely play an accretive role in the Anglo American portfolio, particularly with the outstanding potential of an asset like Mogalakwena. The PGM industry can generate high returns over time, but particularly for those with the best assets, especially for leading producers such as Anglo Plats. In summary, there is undoubtedly a very strong upside potential, both asset and market-driven, for Anglo American Platinum. However, it became increasingly clear that if we have Anglo American Platinum in the portfolio going forward, we risk not getting the full value of either element of the portfolio fully reflected by the market. That in turn will undermine the ability of both Anglo American and Anglo American Platinum to achieve their full potential. Without the PGM business, the portfolio and structure of Anglo American are much simpler. The portfolio has great balance across geographies and importantly, there is less complexity in capital allocation going forward. Anglo American Platinum standalone can set out its own priorities to deliver its full potential, and through the separation, Anglo American shareholders will be able to participate in that. In short, the PGM business is a great business, and we still have full confidence in its future, but from a market perspective, it's worth more apart from Anglo American. I should also be very clear that we believe that value delivery in the separation of Anglo Plats is much better delivered by Anglo American rather than as part of the BHP takeover proposal. The Anglo American team has separated a number of other businesses, including the demergers of Mondi and Thungela. These were complex, but delivered successfully over time. If, however, we try to execute the takeover at the same time as 2 demergers, it's a step change in risk and associated value implications. It involves trying to get all the approvals on an inter-conditional basis, all at the same time. Any regulatory process comes with risk, and if structured as proposed by the BHP takeover offer, the risk falls disproportionately to Anglo American shareholders. There is a follow on question as to why we have decided to keep Kumba. The key point to come back to is that the portfolio decisions are not just a question of asset quality, it's also how the portfolio dynamics work as a whole. That's looking at having appropriate balance, capabilities and financial capacity to deliver the strategy in a portfolio where the market will attribute full value to the component parts. The key concern is that with both Anglo Platinum and Kumba in the structure, there are 2 extra listed entities that together create complexity and raise concerns about the balance in the portfolio. However, to be clear, these are both great assets in a jurisdiction that we continue to have high confidence in operating. Therefore, it makes no sense to remove both. In terms of fit with the existing business, given our commitment to premium iron ore and the synergies across that business, there is a clear logic to keeping Kumba. Now what jumps off the page at you in the new Anglo American is just how simple it will be, copper and premium quality iron ore with the growth potential of Woodsmith. In terms of the portfolio design principles that I've covered just now, these emphatically tick the boxes in terms of high quality assets, and exposure to attractive demand trends, and I'll unpack the next layer of that investment case later on in the presentation. Although the portfolio will be much simpler, it retains great balance whether looked at through a commodity, asset or geographical diversification lens, with no greater than 30% exposure to any single country or asset. There will also be greater financial resilience in the step change in margin, which creates confidence in much improved through the cycle performance, which will be enhanced by the lower costs that we have discussed. The Group will also have the scale required to ensure efficient costs of capital, effective supply chain, and ability to sustain its technical capabilities, and bring the investment in innovation to account. As I said, it is our intention to move to the portfolio end state as soon as we can, while safeguarding shareholder value. Practically speaking, I believe that this will all be able to be done by the end of 2025. The principles of these portfolio changes is to put them in the right hands to deliver the best value outcome over time to all stakeholders and so that all stakeholders benefit from that. I would reiterate that we retain confidence in all of these assets and that it's a shame that we don't have the time today to talk in more detail about some of the strengths of our great businesses such as Steelmaking Coal. However, today's priority is the pathway forward, so to give you some clarity on our intentions across the business. Firstly, on Steelmaking Coal, the intention is to divest the business. The proceeds would then be used to reset the balance sheet. In the nickel business, urgent action is already being taken to limit the impact of short-term market pressure on cash flow and in parallel, we are exploring care and maintenance and potential divestment options. I have already talked about the rationale for our decision on Anglo American Platinum, and we intend to implement the strategic separation in a way that both optimizes value for Anglo American and Anglo Plats shareholders. We will also work to ensure that the separation is implemented in a responsible way, with due regard for ensuring Anglo American Platinum's ongoing positive stakeholder impact. The intention is for separation to enable Anglo American shareholders to gain direct participation in strong PGM fundamentals and Anglo American Platinum's leading competitive and market positions, and set up the business for long-term success in the interest of all its stakeholders. For De Beers, having made significant progress now towards finalizing the sales agreement with the Government of the Republic of Botswana, Anglo American is now exploring the full range of options to separate the business in order to set it up for success in unlocking full value from its new Origins strategy, its world-class assets and its iconic brand. This will give both Anglo American and De Beers a new level of strategic flexibility to maximize value for both company's shareholders. Over time, Anglo American has built competencies to operate successfully in complex geographies and become a recognized leader in sustainability in mining. We remain absolutely committed to our sustainability ambition as we believe it is a pre-requisite for sustainable value creation, both in terms of accessing and developing new mines and resources, and operating those assets. This is why sustainability is fully embedded into our strategy, from day-to-day operational decisions to portfolio choices. Given our history and our heritage, we are particularly differentiated from sector peers on social performance and socio-economic development. We have been on a journey from a historic, philanthropic or operational footprint role to becoming a catalyst for broader regional development in both developing and developed markets. Our success in developing Quellaveco, the progress at Woodsmith and Sakatti, and successful permitting of the Los Bronces integrated project, are examples of our ability to deploy our sustainability competence, technical skills and reputation to unlock growth at the time when many world-class resources, in particular in copper, remain stranded because of community and environmental constraints. I have no doubt that the mining industry and the world in general is better for having Anglo American in it as a leader driving forward the sustainability agenda. We have demonstrated how it is possible to create genuine alignment between sustainability and profitability, thus, harnessing the power of the market to drive change. This is something that will always be at the very heart of an Anglo American way of doing business. So I would like now to talk to each of the businesses in a little bit more detail. When I talked about the inherent value of the portfolio not being reflected in the market value, one of the areas that is most often referenced is the value of our copper business. There is no doubt it's an outstanding business, well proven, world-class assets, brownfield and greenfield growth to exploit outstanding endowments, and it's hard to argue against the assertion that the value hasn't been fully reflected in our share price. In a much simpler portfolio, we will now have that value transparency going forward, and there will also be the capabilities and the cash flow to support our growth ambitions in the copper portfolio. Very few mining companies are lucky enough to have exposure to even one of the world's greatest copper deposits. At Anglo American, we have 3 of them. That's 3 of the most important sources of arguably the most important metal for the most important industrial transition of our generation, namely the decarbonization of the global economy. Whatever path that decarbonization takes, whatever technology emerges as its champion, in whatever application you care to mention, the one certainty is that it will be enabled by copper. These assets have outstanding geological potential with brownfield opportunities to exploit that potential as well as additional growth from our Greenfield Sakatti project. There is no question that we have the resources, but importantly, we also have the capabilities to deliver their full potential. One of the highlights of my career was being part of the team that built Quellaveco. We needed to rethink how mining companies should behave in order to have the license to develop assets in sensitive sociopolitical and natural environments. It was that re-imagination of the development process that enabled us to build Quellaveco during COVID, and to do so on time and on budget for the benefit of all of our stakeholders. The term Tier 1 gets thrown around a lot in our industry, but it is undoubtedly the case for each of our mines. When trying to get a sense of the quality of these 3 assets, it is worth remembering that the average copper mine produces around 37,000 tonnes of copper a year, and the average reserves of a mine are just over 600,000 tonnes, not the millions of tonnes that you see in the charts here. I am fortunate to have worked for my entire life in the mining industry, across commodities and geographies, and I believe that this is some of the most attractive mining real estate on the planet. I'm not surprised that it is sought after by others. I have touched on the point about geological potential and quality, but what does that really mean? Well, it means something like what we have here at Quellaveco. At Quellaveco, we are just beginning to understand the full potential of this asset, with new drilling planned to start this year. We have declared reserves, which are just a tiny fraction of what we know can exist at this mine. You can see from the slide, this orebody is open at depth, providing an exploration target of between 5 billion and 11 billion tonnes at 0.4% to 0.6% grading copper. Or put another way, it has ore reserves of 8 million tonnes of copper, additional mineral resources of 8 million tonnes and a further exploration upside target underneath the existing mine of 59 million tonnes of copper. Los Bronces has even greater potential, with more drilling at that asset also planned now over the next decade. These are extraordinary numbers, staggering. But it is just that, that creates the optionality and growth potential that I am so excited about and which underpins the value of deposits like these. The truly great copper mines, the genuinely Tier 1 deposits, all share one thing in common, which is the ability to continually replenish themselves, and to produce not just for decade, but for centuries. It is Tier 1 deposits like Quellaveco, like Los Bronces, like Collahuasi that are the only real annuities in the economy. We have been mining at Los Bronces for 135 years, and there is significant potential for many, many decades to come. The value of these Tier 1 mines is all the more significant when you think about it in an industry context. Over recent decades there has been a continuous step up in capital intensity to bring new copper production online. In addition to inflationary pressures and supply chain disruption, there are structural elements underpinning this increase, in particular longer permitting processes and higher regulatory standards. If anything, these challenges are continuing to increase. Therefore, as demand for copper increases, the cost of the new supply almost inevitably must increase in the face of these structural trends. That is likely to lead to a significant increase in the value of long-term producing assets like Quellaveco, Los Bronces and Collahuasi. Furthermore, the cost of bringing the brownfield expansions online from our assets should be significantly lower than those for new Greenfield projects. And so, the growth potential on brownfield expansions in our assets will also be more value accretive. It's also important to note that one of the key constraints to growth in copper is not capital, it's not geology, nor is it technology. It is sustainability. The top 20 undeveloped copper resources today remain sterilized because of sustainability-related constraints, in particular communities and water, which, as we have seen in Quellaveco, are often interlinked. Therefore, there should be increasing value, not only for our assets, but also for our capabilities. So what is our plan? While we are fully aware of the future potential of our world-class assets, we are also very much grounded in the day-to-day reality of actually delivering this potential. In the near term that means achieving our mine plans, and I have already spoken about what we are doing about that at some length in February. And I'm pleased to say that we can see this starting to work well. In parallel, we are absolutely focused on how we deliver the growth. We have a well sequenced, self-funded pathway to over 1 million tonnes per annum of copper output. And we also remain open to exploring the potential for synergies from adjacencies at both Los Bronces and at Collahuasi. This growth will take time, and it has to be done in the right way. This is what I learnt from the mistakes that were made during the development of Minas-Rio, and how we benefitted from these learnings at Quellaveco. And now, in the new Anglo American, we have the correct, simplified organizational structure that will ensure that we are laser focused on the delivery of this growth. And now turning to premium iron ore. While copper quite rightly gets the majority of the attention in the market at the moment, the fundamentals for premium iron ore are also very strong. With 7% of global carbon dioxide emissions coming from the production of steel, the pressure on the steel industry to decarbonize is extremely high. Many leading steelmakers have already set ambitious decarbonization targets and are investing in multiple technology pathways to both decarbonize the existing capacity and develop new carbon neutral green steel capacity. Premium quality iron ore is essential to decarbonize the production of steel. Very high grade iron ore, such as that which is produced at Minas-Rio, is suitable for the production of steel via the DRI process, which can be carbon neutral. Having an option to expand the production of DRI-grade iron ore was one of the reasons behind our recent acquisition of Serpentina. Our Kumba operations produce primarily high quality lump, with some high grade sinter fines. This is an important mix of products, which will most likely be preferred by traditional blast furnaces on their own journey to carbon neutrality over the next couple of decades. Most external commentators anticipate the demand for lower quality iron ore used in traditional blast furnaces to decline. By contrast, the demand for the highest quality DRI-grade iron ore, such as the product from Minas-Rio, will be many multiples of that as the global steel industry decarbonizes. We already see a premium for this quality of material in the market, and the willingness of steelmakers to pay for this will only increase over time. The supply of premium iron ore is far more constrained than it is for lower quality blast furnace iron ore. Even in a world where the benchmark price of iron ore were to fall, we would expect an expansion in the high grade premium as these 2 product segments become increasingly bifurcated. This is already the case with other carbon intensive materials such as aluminum. The new Anglo American portfolio has a focused premium iron ore business, and we can further leverage this position to increase margin and growth upside from our assets. We expect higher quality ores to be more sought after by steelmakers compared to traditional blast furnace lower grade materials. Our Minas-Rio DRI-grade material will support the growth in green steel production, while our high grade lump from Kumba will enable more carbon efficient transitional steelmaking processes. Moreover, the recent acquisition of Serpentina provides an opportunity for double the production of high value DRI material. Importantly, our iron ore operations primarily serve customers in the U.S., Europe and Middle East, where the pace of decarbonization is expected to be the most rapid. Both copper and premium iron ore share a clear commodity logic. They are the 2 most important means by which the mining industry can help the world achieve its decarbonization and economic development objectives. Needless to say, we believe that the value that these businesses will generate will be proportionate to the importance of that goal. And now, looking at the longer-term growth that we have within the portfolio in the Woodsmith project. We've talked at length in the past about how Woodsmith could be a game changer for the Group. As I have said previously, Woodsmith is practically a textbook example of a high quality Tier 1 asset in a low-risk jurisdiction. The scale of the orebody gives it potential to be a multi-generational mine. It has structural advantages in both the quality of the orebody and its proximity to logistics. This means that it has the potential be a very low-cost mine, with low stay-in business capital requirements that could deliver strong cash flow for many, many decades. Woodsmith plays perfectly into key demand themes such as food security. Meeting the needs of a growing global population sustainably is a key challenge for the agricultural industry. POLY4, the polyhalite product that Woodsmith produces, can increase crop yields by around 3% to 5%, while improving soil health. It will also have a significantly lower carbon footprint than conventional products. That's because POLY4 is a natural product with no chemical processing required, which means it is also suitable for organic use. The nutrients are not new, but having them in a single product is. Plus, POLY4 can significantly deliver additional benefits to a farmer beyond the pure nutrient value. There is enormous potential, even if we just capture a slice of the significant upside of the value-in-use premium for this product. On that basis, we are keen to retain the potential of Woodsmith in our portfolio, but we need to make sure that we are really disciplined about how we allocate capital to it. So what then is the future of Woodsmith? We will continue to work towards the completion of the feasibility study in the first half of 2025, because that's the essential building block for our partnering process that we have already initiated. As we move towards the conclusion of our portfolio transformation process, we will then be able to review the balance sheet, the project outlook and the partnering options in order to reach a decision on how we take it forward. In the meantime, we will slow the investment and we now expect that to be reduced to $200 million in 2025. In short, we continue to believe in the world-class asset and resource potential of Woodsmith as a pillar of our future portfolio, but the timing of the development spending will now be adjusted to align with our portfolio transformation and the strengthened balance sheet. And with that, I'll hand over now to John, who will run you through the financials of the new Anglo-American.

Thank you, Duncan, and good morning, everyone. I'll spend the next few minutes bringing to light the financial dimensions of our plan. This slide sets out the 2023 results of the to be retained businesses on a pro-forma basis, including $0.8 bfwitillion of cost savings associated with the benefit of a simpler corporate structure. While Anglo American will clearly be a smaller business than today, its focus means that it will be higher quality. That is clearly shown here in margin, cash generation and return on capital. EBITDA margins at 46% are 15 percentage points higher than our business today. Operating cash conversion being the percentage of operating profit that converts to cash increases from 54% to 78% and return on capital increases from 16% to 25%. I'm sure you will agree that this clearly spotlights the quality of the new Anglo American. Of course, we operate in cyclical markets and so, it would be inappropriate to look at one year in isolation. You can see here the historical 5-year average performance of the current business versus the new business on a pro forma basis. The message is consistent with 2023, higher margins, lower working capital, higher cash conversion and higher return on capital. This performance is supported by $0.8 billion of incremental cost savings, a significantly lower CapEx profile and more stable working capital. I'll now unpack each of those in a bit more detail. As you will recall, during 2023, we announced $1 billion of cost savings comprising $0.5 billion of corporate savings and $0.5 billion related to our operational excellence programs. I said at the time that I would be disappointed if we didn't do better than that. The $0.5 billion of corporate savings has been fully executed and the operational excellence programs are progressing well following significant consultation programs in a number of countries. The significant simplification of the Group on a go forward basis allows us the opportunity to completely reset the organization design to ensure that we emerge with the most efficient and agile mining company, while of course retaining the great strengths of Anglo American, including our sustainability, community and technology expertise. This new simplified and efficient business will in total cost $1.7 billion per annum less than the business historically did, including an incremental $0.8 billion of annual savings over those previously announced. Of the $1 billion savings previously announced, $100 million relates to businesses now being divested or demerged, which we are still committed to and on track to deliver, leaving $0.9 billion in the retained group, as depicted in the white bars on this chart. The additional $0.8 billion mainly relates to corporate overheads and initiatives as the business is reset. Given we are currently in an offer period, these additional savings have been disclosed as a Quantified Financial Benefits Statement, with KPMG acting as the Reporting Accountant. The savings are expected to be delivered on a run rate basis from the end of 2025, subject to the timing of divestments. As noted earlier, the new business on a pro forma basis is highly cash generative. You can see here that more than half of the previously guided CapEx for the next 3 years relates to the divested or demerged businesses, with capital efficiency in the retained businesses therefore set to improve. The only change to the headline Group CapEx guidance today is simply the re-phasing on Woodsmith. As Duncan mentioned, the final investment decision for WoodSmith will be dependent on us having completed our portfolio changes, and the associated strengthening of the balance sheet as well as syndication. We will continue to invest appropriately over the next 12 months to finalize the feasibility study before minimizing spend until these self-imposed conditions are completed. Moving on to working capital, you can clearly see here that the retained business requires much less working capital and is also more stable over time. In absolute terms, inventories will be around $5 billion lower, which in itself is a big contributor to improved return on capital. Looking now at the balance sheet. We continue to target net debt-to-EBITDA of less than 1.5x at bottom of cycle, and be committed to an investment grade credit rating while continuing with a 40% dividend payout. It is envisaged that any proceeds from business divestments would be used to repay debt. The higher margin operations and lower capital intensity are key drivers of higher return on capital employed and cash conversion. This gives us confidence that our balance sheet metrics can be well managed, while also being able to fund the exciting growth opportunities, described by Duncan, at the right time. Finally, there is of course much work required in re-shaping the group. We will execute the divestments in the right way to minimize value leakage, and therefore maximize value for our shareholders. This will include respectful engagement with all stakeholders and optimizing the tax impact of any transactions. Thank you. And I will now hand back to Duncan.

So to conclude then, this re-imagination of Anglo American sets up the business to thrive for the next generation, strong throughout the cycle. The combination of commodity mix, asset quality and growth potential makes this one of the most attractive ways for investors globally to have exposure to future-enabling products. Anglo American shareholders stand to benefit from every step of the transformation process, value realization from portfolio change, value delivery from a step change in efficiency and value transparency with 2 high quality businesses in copper and iron ore in addition to Woodsmith, all of which have game changing growth potential. This really is an exciting next generation mining company with a strategic flexibility open to few others in the industry. We are focused now on our future, which we believe is genuinely exciting. We do not see the BHP transaction as being in the best interest of our shareholders, because it's simply does not reflect the value of the strategy that we've just outlined for you today. The structure BHP has proposed is highly complex, and generates risk that will be borne disproportionately by Anglo American shareholders. By contrast, I have presented a vision of the future that allows Anglo American shareholders rather than BHP's to get the full upside. So in conclusion, and I won't belabor this point, we set out months ago to reshape our company in order to unlock shareholder value. We have done this by reshaping the company to focus on the best assets, deliver a portfolio that allows for these assets to reach their full potential, and create a company where shareholder value is fully recognized through the portfolio. The actions that we have announced today will deliver all of this. We will minimize the value leakage from the portfolio changes, and this should be more than offset by gains from streamlining our cost base. We will continue to ensure that this company is being run directly and aligned with our core purpose, and we will continue to leverage our unique capabilities and our DNA to deliver even more growth and more value for our shareholders and our wider stakeholders. And now, we are very happy to take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Liam Fitzpatrick from Deutsche Bank.

I've got 3 questions for you. The first one, just on your top shareholders. You've obviously had lots of conversations in recent weeks. So interested in any color you can give in terms of their position on this strategy. Do you think most of your top shareholders support this? And if BHP is willing to adjust the price and deal structure, would you be willing to engage with them? That's the first question. Secondly, on coking coal, there is some surprise in the market over this being included in the disposal set of assets, and it is cash-generative. You're still trying to recover volumes and recent multiples have been quite low. So can you just elaborate on the thinking on that? And then finally, on De Beers, you mentioned demerger and trade sale as options. I think the market would be leaning or prefer a trade sale. So again, can you talk through the pros and cons of each, the potential timing, and any initial discussions you've had with the Botswana government?

Thanks for the questions. I'm not going to be able to answer 2 of those questions. So, just as a reminder, I mean, obviously, really, we do look forward to these questions, and we'd love to help out as much as we can. But technically, we are now under an offer period, or in an offer period, and we are actually restricted in what we can say. And so, as I say, we will definitely try and be helpful in terms of what we can do, but we do need to respect these restrictions. So in terms of shareholders, of course, we speak to our shareholders, but we don't say publicly what we speak to our shareholders about. That will be true in any set of circumstances. Secondly, in terms of the BHP situation, I cannot answer that in terms of these restrictions. In terms of coal, so I think -- and I'm going to refer a lot back to what we set out to do in February, and this is something that hasn't come up in the last 10 days. We set out at the beginning of the year to have a look at the resilience of our business at the top of the cycle and at the bottom of the cycle. We set out some very clear strategic priorities for this business. The first one of those is operational excellence. That involved a whole reset of a number of plans in the operations. That's going well at this particular point in time. The second was to have a critical look through the portfolio in terms of valuation, and I'll come back to the criteria that we use for that again. And the third thing was to be absolutely deliberate about where and how we allocated our capital to the growth optionality that we have within the portfolio. So around that second one, which is very important and we'll get to why coal in this whole situation too, there were 3 criteria, 3 very clear principles against which we look to the design of the portfolio in the future. The first of those is the traditional type of asset review in any mining company from time-to-time. So you have a look at the quality of the asset in terms of their endowment, in terms of their mining plans to deliver the value from that endowment, and that's ideally in a constrained and an unconstrained fashion. So you work out where the optimal value is and what it is you need to do to unlock that value. And at the same time, in that bucket, you have to have a look at the markets in which they operate, the structure of those markets, the viable fundamentals of those markets. And that then is the first bar that has to be passed. And coal would pass that. Okay? Good quality assets, good markets, and therefore viable plans, opportunities within that business. That's a tick. The second of these buckets is portfolio synergies. So when you have a look at all of this stuff together, there are a number of things that have to come into play. You've got to understand the capabilities that you have. You've got to understand the efficiencies that you've got in the business. But also, most importantly, you have to understand how you're going to fund all of the optionality that exists within the portfolio. So that's important. And I think in the terms of metallurgical coal, that too would have been a tick in the context of that analysis. The third bucket is a very important bucket. It's one that's not traditionally used or spoken about in asset reviews or portfolio reviews, such as the one that we've currently done, and that is, how do you optimize the value delivery from the whole of the portfolio. And so, the first -- I mean, there are 3 buckets within this bucket too. The first of these is, are you going to be able to get shareholder value recognition throughout the whole of the portfolio? If you're going to change from the current status quo to something that's different, what does the cost of that change look like? And is the optimal outcome as a result of that change going to be worth the cost of doing that change? And then thirdly is, what sort of strategic flexibility does the remaining portfolio, or the portfolio that you have left, deliver for the shareholders in the future? And in that context, in terms of portfolio complexity and daylighting the value of the copper business, daylighting the value of the iron ore business that we have and allowing the flexibility for the development of what we think is one of the most astonishing ore bodies in the world, that's where coal fell down. And on that basis, we believe that we can use it to help reset the balance sheet by paying down debt, by selling an asset that's relatively speaking strategically is not a fit to the portfolio. That's right. Hang on. Liam, there's De Beers too, right? You asked the demerger -- Thanks, John. You asked the demerger or trade sale. We're only just starting now on this thing. I understand what you said, but there are potentially a number of pathways that we will have to work through to do this, but all of them are on the table at the moment.

Our next question comes from Alan Spence of BNP Paribas.

Couple from me as well. Regarding the copper slide and the production target to get to 1 million tonnes per annum, a lot of that is going to be weighted to after 2030. Is there an option to bring forward a few of those brownfield options post 2030 forward by a few years? And regarding any potential asset level synergy between Collahuasi and Q2 mines, anything you can say around how you're thinking about that or potential timeline or how you would engage? And lastly, what made today the right time to slowdown the investment in Woodsmith?

Alan, sorry, could you just repeat your last question, please?

Yes, regarding the Woodsmith project and the slowdown of the CapEx and spend, what makes now the right time to make that decision?

Very good. Look, on the copper growth portfolio, the trajectory to 1 million tonnes is relatively close in towards the early 2030s, with the exception of Sakatti, actually. So it starts out really with the development of Collahuasi and the continued expansion of Collahuasi, then moving into Quellaveco, and then Sakatti and, of course, the Los Bronces underground project. The constraints in terms of developing copper projects today, as I said in the presentation, are not an issue of geology or technology, et cetera, et cetera. They fundamentally become an issue associated with sustainability. And therefore, permitting and the requirements that you need to get permits in order to be able to develop. I mean, funnily enough, in terms of the markets today, it's not even a funding constraint to be able to get copper projects built. So the key thing here is that you have to be able to get the permits, and that's the critical path to building a project. And all the projects that we've got in the portfolio from a copper point of view today are running at about the fastest pace that they probably could run, and they are not constrained by anything other than getting the permits, getting a set of permit conditions that are viable for the project and the project implementation. So unless permitting conditions, or permitting processes change materially, then I think there is very limited possibility to accelerate much of the copper growth that exists within the portfolio today, other than from effective operational efficiencies. So the one thing that we have got, you remember, #1 of our key strategic priorities is operational excellence. There will be operational focus now on improving productivity, on improving efficiencies, and there will be a little bit of growth to come from that as we keep focused on operational efficiency elements of it. But really, from a permitting point of view, it's very much process driven. And there are 2 elements to this process. The first is, what is the administration process. I see some opportunities and you certainly see countries like Chile working very hard to remove some of the bureaucracy associated with permitting and permitting processes. So there is an opportunity there to be sure. But the second element of permitting a copper project or any project today is the substantive content that requires to go into the permit. And much of that is a function of collecting data and engaging stakeholders, and engaging stakeholders properly, right? So this isn't a situation where you go and tell the stakeholders what you're doing. You have to engage with them. You have to develop the project with them. If you don't do that, it ends in tears. And I think Quellaveco is a great example of that. It took us several years to develop the project, to get to a point where we were able to implement a project that, relatively speaking, has not had any community disruptions compared to the vast majority of other copper projects that have been developed in the recent times. It is for these reasons that these permit conditions take time to get delivered, and to get delivered in a sustainable and a reliable way. So I don't see much opportunity to accelerate the copper growth unless the administration of some of these permits do change, and that's generally in the hands of the governmental organizations that run these permitting processes. In terms of would we be prepared to consider anything else in terms of adjacencies, as we call them, I actually mentioned that in the presentation. We very much like the idea of adjacencies. This is where you do get the best industrial synergies. You get the most industrial logic out of this. And I think what we did with Vale on Serpentina is a great example of that. But of course, there are a number of parties that have to come to the table on that. And when these parties come to the table, the outcome still has to be the highest value. So the direct answer to the question is, yes, we are prepared to engage in that, but we have sort of a plan A and a plan B approach to it. And I just want to continue to emphasize, we really do like the industrial logic of these sort of adjacent type of deals that you could do on these assets. In terms of why now, in terms of why is this the right time to do what we're doing on Woodsmith, there are a few things. So first of all, we have to complete this feasibility study. It is basically the pre-requisite to being able to syndicate this project. We like the idea of syndication. It's important for us to syndicate this project. We did it very successfully with Quellaveco, and we will do this with Woodsmith. But we have to also now go through a massive process of restructuring the whole of the portfolio. And that's not just the work of physically restructuring the portfolio, it is also the work of physically restructuring the balance sheet. And it is the most prudent and the most sensible thing for us to do under the current conditions. So on completion of the feasibility study and subject to the fact that we have a viable project that we would go forward with, slow it down so that we can during the process of acquiring a syndication partner or partners to the project, put the company in its future state and the balance sheet in a state that is much less exposed to ups and downs in the market conditions of the current balance sheet. And that's why we have decided to do it now in this way.

If I could please push a little bit on that. How has that thinking changed since the December update?

I don't think it's changed anything since the December update as far as Woodsmith is concerned. Is that your question?

Yes, I'm just...?

That we have to finish the feasibility study. We want to syndicate the partner and we would never put the balance sheet, or the credit rating of the company at risk in terms of the execution of a project like this, and we're completely consistent with that.

Our next question comes from Alain Gabriel of Morgan Stanley.

I have 2 questions, please. So the first one is with your plan today, you are going further than you have ever gone before with restructuring and this will not be simple. Where are the greatest execution risks and what are the realistic time lines for all these initiatives to come through? That's my first question. And the second question is, I suspect you have engaged with the South African government before deciding to separate Amplat. Are there any regulatory hurdles that we need to consider for the separation? And what are the costs involved, including any potential tax liabilities?

I'll ask John just to speak to costs and taxes. Not a lot that we can say in that respect. But I can absolutely assure you that in the consideration of how we design the portfolio, we have taken all of these things into account. It would be odd for us not to have done so. In terms of the change, of course, it is a large change. But if you think about it in the component forms of it, there are 2 divestments potentially that we need to do and 2 demerges or a sale that we need to do. What I have said is I have a very high level of confidence of being able to execute those over a period that we would see a substantially complete year by the end of 2025. So all of the calculus in terms of where the markets are, what it would take, what the regulatory processes are, how we would do it, have gone into coming up with that as the target date for completion on this thing. Every process that you go through in the context of things like demerges have regulation associated with them. This would not be the first demerger that we have done and certainly not in South Africa. We have led several successful demergers, the most recent being Thungela. We have done Mondi before and both of these have been extremely value accretive to shareholders when they were done in the right way and when they were done by people who understood how to do these things in that country and in that jurisdiction. All of that will be true in this situation here too. John, do you want to handle the tax question?

Yes, on tax, so obviously, it would not be typical for us at this stage to be discussing potential tax consequences of a transaction. Clearly, transaction structure can have a big impact, proceeds or value can have a big impact, legislation can change and that's obviously amplified in this awful situation that we find ourselves in today. What I can say is that obviously, this is a strategy that we have been working on for some time, and therefore, there are certainly no fatal flaws or material issues that we see from a tax perspective in executing any of the transactions that we are proposing here. As we have talked about the significant cash-generative nature of the business going forward, we have talked about the strength of the -- strengthening the balance sheet and also our balance sheet metrics, that takes into account all of our work that we have done from a tax and a frictional cost perspective.

Our next question comes from Bob Brackett of Bernstein Research.

I will keep with the 2-parter philosophy. The first question I have is, we go back to February '22 and pull your results. You laid out the structure, the backbone of what you are talking about today. Here you are sort of filling in a lot of the valuable details. Has anything changed in your strategic thinking, perhaps catalyzed by the BHP offer? Or is this what you would have told us maybe at a slower pace without the BHP offer?

No, look -- thanks for the question, and I absolutely believe that this is the structure that delivers the best value against the principles that we set out. The only thing that the BHP takeover offer has done is just accelerated the timing of the announcement of it. This is the right structure. It is the highest option from a value perspective and I promise you that during the whole process, since we started doing this review, we have run a number of options against that third criteria; How does the portfolio all fit together? How do you daylight the value of all the component parts of the portfolio? What are the costs of moving from status quo to the outcome? And this is the best strategic solution for this business and the assets that we have in the businesses today. So the only thing that would be different would be we probably would have waited until beyond the South African elections to roll this out publicly. But our hand has been forced by the fact that the offer is in now.

Very clear. The follow-up would be, this is a process that we'll unwrap over the next, say 1.5 years, end of 2025, I think you talked about. How have you stress tested the portfolio and the strategy against a down cycle in commodity prices or recession? What do you see as testing the limits of what could go wrong?

Yes -- no, absolutely. And so, we've seen what the impacts are to a portfolio that has a number of complex businesses in them, when just 2 of those businesses go into the bottom of the cycle, as we saw in 2023 and late in 2022, with both copper and diamonds being bottom of cycle in a material sort of way. And so that factored enormously into our thinking about the resilience of the portfolio and the risk of the portfolio. So again, when you have a look at that, that third criteria against which we were doing the portfolio assessment sort of daylights how you might think we were thinking about this going through. The drivers for the commodities that are in the retained portfolio in Anglo-American are very, very strong. That's the first thing. So copper for the energy transition, copper for the improvement of living standards across the world, copper in all sorts of applications, as I say. What you know is it's going to be very, very difficult to supply into that world, into that level of demand with the availability of copper and copper projects in the world today. So we feel very confident in copper demand, looking at the shape of the portfolio, and especially with the quality of the assets that we've got in the portfolio, even more especially with the optionality that we have in the assets in this portfolio. And thirdly, even more especially with the capabilities that we have of being able to obtain permits, and be able to deliver projects successfully. And so we like that construct, and the fundamental structural support around that particular vertical in the business. We believe very strongly that the world will have to transition to carbon neutrality in some shape or some form, and steel has a very material role to play in that. And there's the transition which will take an enormous amount of steel as we build towards carbon neutrality. And that steel is always going to lean into the highest quality of iron ore that is available in that process. And at the end of this process, there's going to be, by the looks of things, a much more significant level of demand for high quality iron ore that could go into DRI steelmaking. And our portfolio looks really resilient against that as a demand trend. And then lastly, in terms of polyhalites, we understand that the world is going to be really short [ of ] food at some particular point in time. We believe that this is an asset that can deliver into the bottom of this cost curve with a very unique product, all the same nutrients that exist in all fertilizers today, but packaged in a different form, bottom of the cost curve. So we believe that if we can get this project up and running through a resilient balance sheet, then the fundamentals of it provide a lot of support for the balance sheet in the future. So those are the 3 drivers. And the portfolio is nicely weighted as it stands today, if you have a look at it from a risk perspective. So 3 major elements of the portfolio, 50% of it is going to be copper for the foreseeable future. These are really, really good fundamentals that I believe support the strength and the resilience of the portfolio in a go-forward situation.

Our next question comes from Dominic O'Kane from JPMorgan.

You present a very positive outlook for your copper assets, and we see a very positive copper price reflected in the market and strong strategic interest from corporates and investors in copper generally. So my question is, was there consideration or could there be consideration to an alternative proposal under which you look to sell down a partial or full stake in the copper division in order to maximize shareholder value? Or is that something that you will rule out as part of your strategic initiatives?