Cliffs essentially rejected all Casablanca’s suggestions and appointed a new CEO, Gary Halvorson, who joined the firm last November as COO. Halvorson’s appointment was announced when the company reported fourth-quarter earnings after markets closed Thursday.
In the letter Cliffs released Friday morning, the company said it has taken significant steps to improve the miner’s performance:
Our focus has been — and continues to be — on reducing costs, strengthening our balance sheet with cash flows from operations, taking a disciplined approach to capital spending, and evaluating the strategic fit and value creation potential of all of Cliffs’ assets.
The past several years have been hard on Cliffs and its investors. From a peak near $100 a share in mid-2011, the share price has fallen about 80%, primarily on falling demand and prices for iron ore. The company notes in its open letter than iron ore prices have dropped 22% in the past 12 months and that prices for hard coking coal from Australia have fallen 24%.
Casablanca had proposed splitting the company in two, one focused on international operations and one on U.S. operations. The investment firm further proposed that the U.S. company adopt the master limited partnership (MLP) model, doubling the company’s dividend payment, divesting non-core assets and reducing costs.
Responding to the demand that Cliffs divest certain infrastructure and non-core assets, the company said:
Casablanca’s lack of familiarity with the mining sector is evident with this point. Infrastructure assets are crucial to the success of any mining company and we fail to see how it would enhance shareholder value by shedding these assets.
Cliffs apparently thinks it can do better without Casablanca’s help. But one look at the stock price chart over the past five years shows a gain of less than 0.5%. Cliffs needs some help from somewhere.
Shares were up nearly 7% Friday morning, at $23.38 in a 52-week range of $15.41 to $29.90.
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