Johannesburg | Wednesday
ANGLO American plc has announced that Goran Lindahl, a non-executive director, will step down as deputy chairman and chairman-elect of Anglo American.
The announcement comes in the same week that it was reported that Lindahl agreed to hand back half of a multi-million dollar pension and severance payout he received when he left his former employer Zurich-based electrical engineering company ABB.
He was due to succeed Julian Ogilvie Thompson as chairman in May but will now remain as a non-executive director of the company while Ogilvie Thompson will continue as non-executive chairman until a successor is appointed.
In a statement Ogilvie Thompson said that Lindahl had indicated that if there were any risk of the company becoming associated with negative perceptions, he would not wish to assume the chairmanship.
Lindahl was previously a CEO at ABB and questions were raised when he and the company’s former chairman Percy Barnevik received large payouts when they left.
The Financial Times’ website FT.com reported on Tuesday that ABB last month demanded a substantial repayment from them after it found that the board of directors had never been properly informed about the scale of the benefits and would never have agreed to such large payout if it had known.
The report said that Lindahl would forego SFR47-million (about $27,4-million) of SFR85m (about $49,7-million) he received in benefits when he was ousted in the year 2000.
Barnevik would return SFr90-million (about $52,6-million) of his SFr148-million (about $86,5-million).
Meanwhile, the mining giant reported on Wednesday that profits slumped 9,5% last year to $3,43-billion and said the outlook remained tough.
The group, which is quoted in London but has mining interests in Africa, Europe, the Americas and Australia, said total sales fell $6,3% to $19,28-billion dollars, blaming the slack performance on “substantially weaker prices for most commodities”.
“While there are some signs of economic recovery, at this stage they seem more encouraging in the United States than in Europe and Japan,” said chief executive Tony Trahar in a statement.
“The trading environment for most of our products is likely to remain challenging.”
Anglo American said the main achievement of 2001 was the removal of complex cross holdings which the mining group and diamond outfit De Beers held in each other.
“The elimination of the cross holding between Anglo American and De Beers in the first half of the year was a key element to the restructuring process and has brought substantial benefits to Anglo American,” the group said. – AFP