BusinessLive writes that Kelvin Dushnisky will be leading a very different AngloGold Ashanti (AGA) to the company that Srinivasan Venkatakrishnan headed as CEO.  

Dushnisky, a Canadian who joins AngloGold as CEO in September, leaving his role as Barrick Gold president, comes to a firm that has turned to an interim profit, has rising output and has cut its SA contribution to just 10% of the group’s annual gold output.  Under the five-year stewardship of Venkatakrishnan, a crippling 12m oz hedge book was removed, costs were cut, assets were sold, SA closed or shut, and the debt burden was brought down to manageable levels.  The pressing tasks now facing Dushnisky include returning the 4km-deep Mponeng mine in SA to profit.  AGA has begun a restructuring process at the Mponeng mine and the Mine Waste Solutions tailings business.  Chris Sheppard, who cut his teeth in the platinum sector, has the job of overseeing the two-thirds cut in the annual spend of R3.3bn in SA on support and logistical services.  Up to 2,000 jobs could be lost, but Sheppard indicated that the well-advanced retrenchment process with unions was revealing options to sell assets such as hospitals, laboratories, rail networks and other infrastructure to third parties, with employees going with the assets.  The process, which should be completed by the end of 2018, would return Mponeng to positive cash flows, he opined.

• Read this report by Allan Seccombe in full at BusinessLive
• Read too, AngloGold moves to avoid 2,000 job losses in South Africa region, at Mining Weekly
• And also, AngloGold profits from good cost control, at Business Report

Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page