AngloGold Ashanti’s chief executive has not ruled out the possibility of separating the gold miner’s South African assets from the rest of the portfolio but said its debt remained too high.

“Our position hasn’t changed, we never say never, however the debt levels still remain significantly high to enable a clean split to happen,” said CEO Srinivasan Venkatakrishnan on Monday.

Reuters reported on Friday that AngloGold was considering reviving efforts to split South African assets and list the international portfolio in London after shareholders revolted against a similar effort in 2014.

Reporting by Zandi Shabalala, editing by Louise Heavens