In theory, Anglo American has been a sitting duck for a takeover bid for about a decade. Its share price has lagged behind that of other big miners and successive efforts to sharpen a sprawling portfolio have underwhelmed. The last news, at the end of 2023, was production delays that sent the shares down 20% in a day.
In practice, the same complexities, plus deep entanglement in South African politics, have served as a deterrent to a bid. Anglo was seen as too fiddly. But here comes BHP, the Australian giant of the sector, with a proposal to cut through the noise and get to the assets it would like to own, primarily Anglo’s copper mines in Peru and Chile and, to a lesser extent, its iron ore projects in Brazil and metallurgical coal in Queensland.
