Rio Tinto executives faced disgruntled shareholders yesterday with conciliatory attention as they indicated that compromises were not out of the question on the terms of the miner's fund-raising deal with Chinalco.
Rio had redoubled efforts to listen to shareholders, said Paul Skinner and Tom Albanese, chairman and chief executive respectively, during three hours that included shareholders accusing Rio of “selling off part of the company silver”, being “totally unreasonable to agree to forget investors' pre-emption rights” and involving the company in a “strategic mire”.
Rio's shareholder base remains divided two months after the company proposed to raise $19.5bn from Chinalco.