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Johannesburg - Anglo American on Thursday announced successful exit from its Tongaat Hulett shareholding, realising gross proceeds of about R4.2bn ($523m).
The sale was completed by way of an accelerated bookbuild of 51.2 million Tongaat Hulett ordinary shares, representing a 49.5% stake, placed with qualifying institutional investors at a price of R82 a share.
"Due to the strong demand for the Tongaat ordinary shares, Anglo American sold all of its shares in the equity placing and therefore there will be no exchangeable bond into Tongaat ordinary shares," Anglo said in a statement to the JSE.
The sale price represents a discount of about 7% to the 60-day volume weighted average price of Tongaat ordinary shares, as at August 11 2009.
The Financial Times said on Wednesday that while the equity placing would raise $523m, this was hardly going to shift the miner's $11.3bn net debt.
"Unable to find a buyer for Tongaat, Anglo's placing provides a swift exit. To be fair, it had been on Anglo's non-core list for some time as Cynthia Carroll, chief executive, turns the miner into an industrial metals group," the UK financial daily said.
The exit follows fast on the heels of the group's exit from its majority shareholding in South African aluminium products company Hulamin late last month.
Anglo's sale of 61 million Hulamin shares realised a total consideration of R732m.
- I-Net Bridge
