By Adam Whittaker and Rhiannon Hoyle
Rio Tinto's new chief executive officer said he would target cost reductions and sell assets in a bid to simplify the business.
Simon Trott, who took the helm of the Anglo-Australian miner in August, said Thursday that Rio Tinto would target up to $10 billion in cash proceeds from the sale of assets, or minority stakes to partners.
Rio Tinto will also cut roles as part of a $650 million annualized productivity target, Trott told reporters. Significantly more gains are targeted, the company said. On Wednesday, rival miner Glencore said it had cut around 1,000 jobs as part of a restructuring.
The world's biggest miners are under pressure to better appeal to investors as the industry becomes dwarfed by fast-growing sectors such as technology and pharmaceuticals. They are also seeking ways to bolster future profits that have long relied on a strong iron-ore market that is widely expected to cool.
Barclays analyst Amos Fletcher last month said job cuts could support a cost-reduction target of around $1 billion over the next two or three years. RBC Capital Markets analyst Ben Davis estimated a similar goal, noting that Anglo-Swiss giant Glencore had already outlined its own plans to save that much by the end of 2026.
Trott has made simplifying the business a central tenet of his strategy to achieve his goal of making Rio Tinto the "most valued" metals and mining business.
Some investors have raised concerns about how sprawling Rio's business has become after a string of acquisitions. The company now has up to 20 projects in development and is operating and exploring in more than 30 countries across more than 10 commodities.
As part of the simplification strategy, Rio Tinto said Thursday that the next phase of the strategic reviews of its iron and titanium business and its borates unit would test the market's appetite for the assets. Trott didn't outline a timeline for selling the assets.
One of the biggest questions going into Thursday's investor briefing was how Trott intends to develop Rio's lithium business, much of it acquired via a $6.7 billion takeover of Arcadium Lithium earlier this year.
Other major miners balked at expanding into lithium, used to make batteries, because they didn't envisage it earning them significant profits like the kind they can make producing industrial metal copper or steel ingredient iron ore.
Rio Tinto said it would continue with its existing lithium projects but said additional capital would only be deployed when the returns are sufficient.
Trott had already mothballed a lithium project in Serbia.
Investors hadn't expected Trott to back out of lithium entirely. There was a consensus view that he would refine the company's pipeline of lithium projects, with developments happening more slowly than originally planned.
Meanwhile, Paul Graves, the head of Rio Tinto's lithium business and formerly CEO of Arcadium Lithium, is leaving the company as Trott assembles a core group of leaders.
Rio Tinto's push to cut costs coincides with a paring back of capital expenditure over the medium term, which the miner expects to fall to less than $10 billion a year from 2028 and beyond. Rio Tinto expects to spend around $11 billion over 2025.
Rio Tinto it targeting 7% copper equivalent production growth in 2025 and 3% compound annual production growth through to 2030.
Write to Adam Whittaker at adam.whittaker@wsj.com and Rhiannon Hoyle at rhiannon.hoyle@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 04, 2025 03:25 ET (08:25 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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