Yahoo Finance Anglo American investors approve pay overhaul
Shareholders in Anglo American have waved through a shake-up of the mining group’s remuneration policy, retrospectively capping the amount its chief executive can earn.
The mining giant suffered a painful revolt at the hands of investors last year, when 42pc voted against its policy in a non-binding ballot at its AGM.
The company’s new pay policy applies greater limits on the amount senior directors can earn from share awards under long-term incentive plans. This cap will apply to awards made in 2014, 2015 and 2016.
The policy also places greater emphasis on the amount of returns made to shareholders when evaluating bosses’ performance.
Shareholders in London voted 95pc in favour of its pay report and 92pc in favour of its new policy.
Investors’ ire was raised last year after Mark Cutifani, Anglo’s chief executive, was given an award of £778,000 from shares vesting in his long-term performance plan, despite Anglo ending 2015 as the worst-performing stock in the FTSE 100.
Earlier this year Mr Cutifani told The Telegraph he would “prefer to take a pay cut and for the shareholders to be happy and supportive than to keep the policy as it is”.
Speaking at the miner’s AGM in London, the chief executive told investors that the company would look to restore its dividend by the end of year, having stopped it during the downturn in 2015 when falling commodity prices rocked the industry. However Mr Cutifani also warned that commodity price volatility was the "new normal".
Anglo swung back to profit last year and stepped back from a sweeping plan to offload a string of mines in order to focus on diamonds, copper and platinum.
The group still regards those three commodities as key to its future plans. However, in a production update for the first quarter of the year, it revealed a surge in output of coal and iron ore, two minerals it had previously deemed to be “non-core”.
Production of iron ore, used in steel, jumped 17pc at its South African operations, while Minas Rio, a mine in Brazil that it has developed at great expense, reported a surge of 30pc.
Diamond output rose 8pc, thanks to a new operation in the Canadian tundra, which opened last year. But production of copper fell by 3pc because of poor weather at its mines in Chile, and output of platinum was flat.
Anglo is continuing to look at ways of selling off or rationalising assets in its home state of South Africa, and earlier this month it disposed of a collection of coal mines that supplied the domestic power grid.
Tyler Broda, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, said: “With the coming revisions to the mining charter in South Africa and recent commodity price volatility, trading in Anglo is expected to remain choppy.”
Anglo shares rose 1.5pc in afternoon trade to £11.34, barely changed in the year to date.
