At least he knew when it was the right time to leave.
Mark Cutifani is stepping down as chief executive of mining giant Anglo American PLC (LSE:AAL) just as the company’s shares hit a 20-year high.
This is no mean feat, given that that twenty-year period included the great mining boom that ran from around 2004 until the global financial crisis collapsed everything in 2008.
Of course, Cutifani had help, not least from the US Federal Reserve, which crashed the US dollar to support the economy, thus artificially boosting metals prices for more than a decade. The wider implications of that policy are only now beginning to come home to roost, as two crises have followed on from each other in quick succession – Covid and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
But that’s another story.
Cutifani’s main achievement is that he held Anglo American together through some interesting times and, broadly speaking, managed to keep it out of the kinds of ESG and political trouble that Rio Tinto, BHP, and Glencore periodically run into.
He joined the company just after it booked a US$4.9bn charge against the ailing Minas Rio iron ore development in Brazil, which in turn led to the company’s first loss-making year since it listed in London at the end of the last century.
It was a tough time or Anglo, but serendipitous for Cutifani. He was able to streamline the business and mould it after his own ideas without too much pushback from shareholders who had already been hard hit.
Back then, the shares were worth less than half of what they are now, and they kept going down too, for a while, as demand from China slowed.
But Cutifani’s focus on cutting the cost base allowed Anglo to navigate the choppy waters and subsequently to start to enjoy some chunky margins when commodity prices really began to take off again during covid.
Anglo currently produces a million tonnes of copper per year and 64mln tonnes of iron ore, and owns De Beers, which accounts for about a third of the world’s rough diamond production.
The numbers do look good. Sales are close to double where they were ten years ago. And a shift in emphasis away from South Africa, which is perceived as increasingly risky, has continued.
One high profile asset has yet to prove its worth, though.
The acquisition, under controversial circumstances, of the Woodsmith polyhalite mine in North Yorkshire looked like a steal in comparison with the valuations many prominent London brokers had been giving it in earlier times.
But whether that project will ever live up to anything like the former hype that surrounds it remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, Duncan Wanblad has now taken over as chief executive.
It’s a difficult baton to pick up, in some ways, given where the share price is.
Much of the associated commentary around the transition reckons that now Cutifani has fixed the financial and operational aspects of the business, it’s up to Wanblad to work on the carbon footprint.
But this might well be an albatross. Anglo’s prior boss but one, Cynthia Carroll, did a great job at cleaning up the company’s safety record. That was seen as crucial at the time, but the wider business suffered, and Cutifani has said that one thing he noticed when he first took over was that senior managers were relaxed about missing targets.
Wanblad will have to be careful the ESG agenda doesn’t overwhelm his inbox at the expense of operating efficiency. Because although ESG may go out of style as quickly as it came in, it’s unlikely that profits ever will.