A sign stands at the entrance to the offices of Anglo American Plc in the Marshalltown district of Johannesburg, South Africa, on Friday, Oct. 26, 2012. Anglo American Plc Chief Executive Officer Cynthia Carroll , the first woman, external hire and non-South African to hold the job, will quit after Anglo lost $14 billion in value in the more than five years she was in charge. Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images

HARARE, March 25 (Reuters) – Global mining giant Anglo American Plc AAL.L on Friday announced the sale of its remaining shareholding in Thungela Resources TGAJ.J, completing its exit from the South African coal business.

Under pressure from investors to exit coal businesses worldwide, the owner of gold, platinum and diamond mining companies, Anglo American hived off its entire stake in its South African coal mines into Thungela and distributed most of the shares to its shareholders through an initial public offering in June, barring 8%.

At the time of listing, investors had written off the prospects of Thungela amid global pressure on companies and countries to wean industries off of coal.

Read more: Royal Bafokeng Platinum delivers blowout quarter supported by strong metal prices

But rising coal prices turned the tables for Thungela and its shares are up six-fold in the last nine months.

Anglo said it sold its residual Thungela shareholding for 154 rand per share, realising gross proceeds of 1.67 billion rand ($115 million).

Thungela’s shares were trading at 160.68 rand at 0741 GMT on Friday, down 8.85%. The company listed at 25 rand per share in June.

On March 22, Thungela reported its first full-year profit for the year ended December 2021 of 6.9 billion rand, driven by higher coal prices. Read full story

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($1 = 14.5279 rand)

(Reporting by Nelson Banya; editing by Jason NeelyEditing by Promit Mukherjee)