PERTH, March 6, 2026, 15:15 (AWST)
South32 could have roughly 90% of its production in base metals — industrial metals such as copper, zinc and lead — within 18 months, outgoing Chief Executive Graham Kerr said in an interview published by Financial Mail on March 5, sharpening the miner’s North America tilt as a leadership handover nears. Financial Mail
The timing matters because mining investors have been paying up for simpler copper stories. “I think most people are looking for pure plays,” Kerr said, using market shorthand for miners focused on one or a few metals, and compared South32 with Anglo American and Glencore, which he said are building copper output of more than 1 million tonnes a year. Financial Mail
South32 is also mid-handover. Company materials show Stephen Pearce became chair on March 1, replacing Karen Wood, while Matthew Daley joined as deputy CEO on Feb. 2 and is due to take over from Kerr later this year. A South32 filing shows March 6 is also the record date for the interim dividend, after the stock traded ex-dividend on the ASX and LSE on March 5, meaning new buyers after that date do not receive the payout. South32
That payout was set at 3.9 U.S. cents a share after South32 posted first-half underlying earnings, its preferred profit measure excluding one-off items, of $435 million for the half ended Dec. 31, up 16%. Reuters reported the result beat a Visible Alpha consensus estimate of $386.6 million. South32
Kerr pointed to Hermosa in Arizona as the core of the next phase. Financial Mail reported that South32’s centrepiece there is the Taylor zinc-lead-silver project, part of a wider deposit that also includes copper and manganese. Kerr also said he expects the company to have more than 50% of its value in the Americas within three years, with Sierra Gorda in Chile another anchor asset. Financial Mail
That would take South32 further from the portfolio it inherited when it was spun out of BHP in 2015. Reuters has reported that Kerr spent the past decade moving the group out of coal and deeper into copper and other base metals, while Financial Mail said South32 has also sold nickel and ferroalloy assets as it reshaped the mix. Reuters
Mozal is the hard edge of that shift. South32 said in December it would place the Mozambican aluminium smelter into care and maintenance — mining shorthand for suspending operations while keeping a site capable of restarting — by March after failing to secure affordable power, and Mozambique’s energy minister said in February the government was still trying to keep it open. Kerr said on South32’s February earnings call the group was running out of key inputs and was “definitely heading for care and maintenance.” Reuters
The site matters well beyond South32. Kerr said on the February earnings call that Mozal employs more than 2,000 people directly and another 2,000 contractors, and that the plant accounts for a third of Mozambique’s manufacturing jobs. Reuters
But the pivot is not clean. Kerr told Financial Mail that investors like growth options, then get nervous when miners move from plans to execution, saying “the market gets highly sceptical”; he also called South32’s smelting exposure a “poison pill” for some shareholders because electricity can make or break returns. Reuters has also reported that some investors question whether high-cost U.S. projects such as Hermosa will pay off. Financial Mail
That doubt is still there. When Daley was named as Kerr’s successor last year, Allan Gray chief investment officer Simon Mawhinney asked whether South32 would simply “join the queue” for copper deals. South32 now enters that transition with its North America-heavy base-metals plan still under construction at Hermosa and with Mozal heading into care and maintenance. Reuters
