Over the past several months, there has been a flood of bad news stories from across the mining industry. Many are from the best-in-class miners like BHP and Rio Tinto who have reduced their dividends, or like Anglo American, who have substantially divested assets or like Glencore who are in the process of deleveraging a massively overburdened balance sheet. These announcements are reported as bad news in a severely battered mining sector struggling to survive much lower commodity prices.
Over-investment in new mines during the super-cycle first began to create an oversupply situation for some commodities in about 2012. Since then, a reduction in commodity prices fueled by both over supply and a less-than-expected growth in demand particularly from China, has been waiting in the wings. Today, the full impact of the end of the super-cycle is evident across the mining sector and companies of all sizes are responding by cost cutting, shutting mines, disposing of non-core assets and deleveraging balance sheets.
The massive changes announced by the major miners and others across the industry are signalling improvement in fundamentals, which are laying the foundation to drive improved profit margins. This, in turn, will attract equity investors seeking sustainable and reasonable investment returns.
Once the mining sector's restructuring has demonstrated that it has adequately addressed the new reality of lower commodity prices, then investor interest and institutional trust will no doubt return. Investors will reallocate funds to the sector, just as investors returned to mining as an asset class from dot-com's in the late nineties.
The recent mining bad news stories are, in fact, solid signals that the industry is taking appropriate action to address the new global reality, and particularly the imbalance between supply and demand. The mining sector is rapidly addressing its problems by shedding assets, reducing debt and cutting dividends – all of which are essential steps in the right direction. The bad news stories are, in fact, for potential investors, very good news indeed.
(Written by Sandy Chim, President & CEO, Century Global Commodities Corporation)