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Int'l Business Times
5 hours ago
- Business
- Int'l Business Times
Anthony Blumberg's Behind-the-Scenes Platinum Power Play in Anglo American's Valterra Formation
Anglo American's recent restructuring of its platinum operations through the launch of Valterra Platinum marks a significant pivot in the global miner's approach to its South African portfolio — and, industry insiders say, signals the deepening influence of private capital interests, particularly those aligned with the Blumberg Family Office. The formation of Valterra, unveiled earlier this year as part of Anglo's broader portfolio review, has been officially framed as an effort to unlock long-term value, streamline operational focus, and create a platform better positioned to weather both regulatory and market volatility. Yet behind the polished investor messaging lies a more intricate story — one shaped in part by the discreet but highly influential family office of Anthony "Tony" Blumberg, a veteran commodities investor and heir to one of South Africa's most tightly held mining fortunes. Multiple sources familiar with the matter describe the Blumberg Family Office as "instrumental" in early discussions surrounding Valterra's strategic composition and governance, including its future-facing alignment with green metals demand and domestic beneficiation policies. While the family office does not currently hold a disclosed equity stake in Valterra, it is understood to be a key player in related financing and advisory circles, often working through intermediary investment vehicles and long-standing industry networks. "They don't need to be on the board to be in the room," said one senior mining executive who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Tony Blumberg has spent decades cultivating influence across Anglo's supplier base, local partners, and political stakeholders. When a restructuring of this scale takes place, you can be sure his fingerprints are somewhere in the background." Anthony (Tony) Blumberg , known within elite circles for his low public profile and high-leverage deal-making, has in recent years emerged as a pivotal force in repositioning South African assets toward what one insider called the "post-carbon profitability curve." His office has quietly backed ventures in hydrogen-linked platinum applications, local refining infrastructure, and early-stage tech-metal recyclers, all of which align neatly with Valterra's prospective roadmap. The timing of Valterra's formation — as platinum group metals (PGMs) face renewed pressure from EV-driven demand shifts — also coincides with a broader push among South African mining houses to deepen domestic partnerships and prepare for regulatory recalibration. Analysts suggest this may make the involvement of family offices like Blumberg's increasingly critical, particularly where political capital and operational continuity are at stake. "Blumberg represents a form of continuity that institutional investors can't always offer," said a Cape Town–based mining analyst. "They understand the terrain, they move quickly, and they don't need quarterly guidance to make a decision. That kind of backing can be decisive in an environment like this." Though Anglo American has not formally acknowledged any role played by the Blumberg Family Office in the formation of Valterra, senior figures close to the deal say the relationship mirrors a broader industry trend: legacy family wealth — once concentrated in extraction — is repositioning itself as a strategic partner in transition. For Blumberg, the stakes go beyond capital returns. Associates say he views Valterra as a litmus test for whether South African mining can adapt to a world increasingly defined by ESG imperatives, geopolitical realignment, and supply chain nationalism — all while remaining commercially viable. "He's not just betting on platinum," one close associate noted. "He's betting on whether South Africa still knows how to lead the next chapter of industrial mining." As the dust settles on Valterra's launch and questions mount around future ownership structures, few expect the Blumberg name to appear in headlines — but few doubt that its influence will be deeply felt.
Daily Mirror
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
'Royal plan' to win over Donald Trump from 'secret weapon' to 'icing on cake
The Royal Family look set to welcome Donald Trump to the UK on a historic second state visit after the summer - and it seems the US president could be keen for two major royals to took part After the Royal Family's summer holidays, they will return to duties with a bang due to Donald Trump's state visit to the UK. It is understood the US president will make an unprecedented second state visit to the UK in September with formal planning for the huge event now underway. The state visit comes after UK prime minister Keir Starmer delivered a letter from the King to Trump to invite him for the state visit - dramatically handing it to him in the Oval Office during a visit to the White House. Of course, the King and Queen Camilla will be on hand to host Trump and his wife Melania - but it seems the US leader has been enamoured by another member of the Royal Family, Prince William. The pair met in Paris last year after the re-opening of Notre Dame Cathedral, with Trump reportedly 'obsessed' with the heir to the throne, calling him "very handsome". And former BBC royal correspondent Jennie Bond believes William possibly teaming up with wife Kate to play a huge royal in the event would do wonders for UK diplomacy. She explained to the Mirror: "President Trump appears to have taken a shine to William, after their meeting at Notre Dame. So I'm sure we shall see Prince William taking a prominent role in the state visit. "The icing on the cake for Donald Trump would, of course, be the presence of the Princess of Wales at some of the events and at the state dinner. That will depend on her health. "But I'm sure both William and Catherine recognise the importance of massaging the President's ego, and they will play as prominent a part as possible. It's what the monarch and his senior working royals must do; it's their job and their duty and they will do it well." When Trump was first told he would be given a second state visit to the UK, the letter from the King invited him to an informal meeting in Scotland as a precursor to a full state visit. But this has now been brought forward by many months. Buckingham Palace was understood to have been hoping for a more leisurely approach amid concern over Trump's threat to make Canada the US's 51st state. However, sources confirmed after conversations between both parties the King and the US president's busy diaries mean they are unable to meet informally first over the summer. And Jennie added: "These are very tricky times for the Government - and the world - so you really can't blame the PM for using every diplomatic weapon in his arsenal. And the King is probably the most powerful weapon he has. "I imagine the King thinks Trump is impudent in the extreme by suggesting Canada should become the 51st US State. I can almost hear the huffing and puffing that it must have provoked behind Palace walls. But Charles also knows that Anglo/American relations are vitally important, and his duty is to help his Government protect that relationship. "So, although the King could conceivably have made himself unavailable at the proposed time, he knows his duty is to stage a spectacular event that will pander to this President's very sizeable ego. And that's what he'll do. "As Prince of Wales, he could allow himself the luxury of boycotting a state dinner for the Chinese president and his entourage – even though it attracted criticism. As King, he no longer has that luxury and he must play a starring role in the state visit at the appointed time. Charles and Camilla will be impeccably behaved, and Trump will be duly bewitched by the magic of monarchy." However, Jennie added that there would also be a diplomatic tightrope to walk for the King given his role as head of state of Canada - which he could even use to his advantage. She explained: "The President views himself as an arch negotiator, but it has to be said that the King is no mean hand himself at convening meetings and encouraging people to hammer out a solution to a variety of issues and problems. "So perhaps he can use a little not-so-soft power to impress upon Trump that Canada is not up for grabs. It is, after all, something exceptionally close to the King of Canada's heart."
The Age
4 days ago
- The Age
One of the world's most beautiful walks can now be done in style
Along a spiralling mountain trail on a morning when the air's so chilled and dry your breath feels ragged before it even leaves your diaphragm, I note that neither burgers nor beers from the night before are an ideal preparation for a 70-kilometre-or-so walk along South America's most famous hiking trail. 'Nothing in Patagonia is flat,' my guide, Patrick Smith (despite his notably Anglo moniker, he's very much a Chilean) warned. 'Even flat places in Patagonia are not flat.' And how about the notoriously wild, windy weather we may encounter here, amid one of the planet's last great icy wildernesses? 'The only thing I'm sure about the weather in Patagonia is that I'm never sure about the weather in Patagonia,' Smith says. Today it's windy but not 'Patagonia' windy. It's blowy enough for me to lose my hat, but Smith tells me an Irishman blew right off this mountain trail we are hiking. 'And last summer,' he says, 'I caught a Brazilian lady in the air and tackled her to the ground like a rugby player.' This is my first full day on the W Hike in Chile's Torres del Paine National Park. One of the world's most beautiful walks, it's a five-day, 74-kilometre journey that traverses valleys, glaciers, mountain lakes and the tallest peaks in southern Patagonia. It has long been the domain of the hardened hiker, one who camps along the way, or sleeps in dorm rooms within refugios (basic mountain huts), and who wakes at dawn to line up at buffets for cornflakes and scrambled eggs. But I'm doing the W differently. Global adventure company Guided By Nature, in partnership with Australian operator Tasmanian Walking Company, has launched a new seven-day, six-night luxury guided hike which makes one of the world's most revered adventure challenges accessible to a wider range of hikers. We'll hike almost the entire trail and return all but one night to boutique lodgings that serve three-course gourmet meals with matched Chilean wines. DAYS TWO TO THREE: Of scrambled eggs and fresh legs Just because our scrambled eggs are fluffier, doesn't mean our hiking trails are shorter, Smith and fellow guide Juan Ignacio Rios Villablanca (now there's a proper Patagonian guide's name) says at a pre-hike briefing. They tell us we will walk an average of 16 kilometres, between seven and 10 hours, each day. The W Hike can be completed west to east or east to west. We're going east to west, so the most challenging, steeper section of the trail is earlier in the trek. We can hike it with fresh legs. My fresh legs will tackle a 22-kilometre slog up and down 800 metres of elevation to the base of Torres del Paine National Park's most iconic landform: Torres del Paine, three jagged granite peaks carved out by glaciers and erosion over millions of years and rising to almost 3000 metres. This section of the W Hike is the busiest, particularly in summer. Most of the 250,000 hikers who visit each year descend on the park between December and March. Guided By Nature's guided hikes are offered in November and April and the park is relatively deserted today as I traverse a dusty dirt road. Guanacos, a species of camelid native to South America and closely related to the llama, feed skittishly by the roadside. They're like hamburger patties to the park's most celebrated resident, the puma, though Villablanca says puma sightings are rare, even though we are moving through an area with the world's highest density of the creatures. They hunt mostly at night and are notoriously stealthy. 'If you're lucky enough to see a puma,' he says. 'It has already seen you 10 times.' But five minutes into our hike, three pumas run right across the trail in front of me, chasing a herd of doomed European hares. Villablanca shakes his head and grins. 'It's all downhill from here,' he says. He's wrong, of course. It's so uphill that my muscles begin to feel like fraying rubber bands. I climb on rocky trails up and across the sheer sides of mountains, through lenga (beech) forest, along suspension bridges over the glassy Asencio River, giving way to locals carrying supplies on horseback. The trail gets perpendicular near the top (fortuitous that I found the hiking shoes I'd stashed in a box in my storage shed after my last hike, around 2019). But there's a reward for those who push through pain to get to the top: one of the world's most famous alpine vistas. Across a jade-coloured lake distorted by glacial 'flour', produced when rocks are ground down by glaciers across millions of years, lie the Torres Del Paine. The first tourist to see these, a 24-year-old Scottish travel writer named Lady Florence Dixie who travelled here by horse in 1879, described them as 'three tall peaks of reddish hue and in sharp exact facsimiles of Cleopatra's needles'. Her accounts provided the outside world with its first glimpse of a wilderness at the end of the world. Going downhill requires an entirely different set of muscles. Gravity helps, at least initially, and then it turns on me as I discover delicate tendons necessary for braking on the outside of both knees I never knew I had. By the end of the trail, I hobble into the carpark like I'd just fought a war. I slept in a tent when I climbed Kilimanjaro; I used Asia's sketchiest squat toilets on a trek in the Indian Himalayas; but now a van is here to transport me to my private lodge. The lodge's lounge looks out to a calm lake and there's a log fire burning. A bottle of Chilean Carmenere, which looks to have my name on it, and a meal of grilled prawns, local lamb and calafate berry ice-cream follow. Through floor-to-ceiling windows I wouldn't dare cover with curtains, I see the snow-capped mountains of the Paine massif lit by a smudge of twinkling Milky Way. I fall asleep under my duck-down duvet long before I get to ponder if I've gone soft in middle age. DAYS FOUR TO FIVE: A dorm is now the norm Adios chef Valeska, ciao linen sheets. Today I hike to a refugio and a shared dorm room. Torres del Paine may be famous for winds that can reach 180km/h and beyond, but on this brisk, blue-sky April morning, I can't feel a breath of it. So I ride on the deck of a catamaran across Lake Pehoe, the mountains reflected on its surface. Today we hike the western edge of the W trail to Grey glacier, the last leg for those walking east to west. It's a shorter trek and a respite after yesterday's skip the central valley for now: that's the power you yield when you dissect an arduous hike like this to make it more user-friendly. I love the flatness of this trail, staring up at mountains that dazzle with refracted sunlight. Then it climbs and climbs and climbs. Now I scramble along a narrow rocky crest between the park's tallest peak, Cerro Paine Grande (2884 metres) and Grey Lake below. Cascades from Paine Grande gush out, feeding the tiny creeks I cross. Straight ahead is Grey Glacier, part of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, the world's second-largest extra-polar icefield, which once covered all of southern Chile and Argentina. Beside it is Grey refugio, a two-star hut with room for 60 hikers. Inside I find a bar with a five-star view of the mountain range, a worthy spot to rest hamstrings, quadriceps and calves that have been forced to eccentrically contract to prevent a tumble down the mountain paths. Dinner's a passable buffet of pasta and grilled chicken at a table in the corner, where I see the mountain in sunset turn a shade of lilac. Later, I'm reminded of what it's like to share a dorm room: the race to get to sleep to beat the other snorers, the shuddering on your bunk as your upstairs neighbour sneaks off to the toilet at 2.30am. I'm totally OK that we're doing it for just one night. Next morning, I take a Zodiac to the edge of Grey glacier, passing icebergs along the way. The glacier's as blue as it is white – air bubbles squeezed out of the glacier across hundreds of years make it appear bright blue. I wear crampons to grip the slippery surface and use an ice axe for stability to walk across the ice, stopping at a lagoon as turquoise as any in the South Pacific. I pick at the edge of the water and place the tiny shards of centuries-old ice into my mouth. Below the surface, there are caves. I descend into one along a rope attached by a guide. Below, water flows through a chamber within the cave, just like a waterslide. The landscape changes as the ice melts, creating new lagoons and caves between which the guides build new paths. Melts can reveal hidden wonders. In 2022, palaeontologists unearthed fossilised remains of a dolphin-like creature – an ichthyosaurs – from within the boundaries of the Torres del Paine National Park. These creatures are thought to have existed between 90 and 245 million years ago. We leave the ice and retreat to a grey-sand beach to catch a catamaran to where our van driver waits for us. Tonight, I don't wear thongs in the shower. DAY SIX: In a world of shock and phwoar Today we're returning to the centre of the W, but where two days prior we walked west to Grey glacier, now we're hiking east, to the French Valley. Today there's even less wind than days four and five and the stillness makes the landscape look surreal. I bug my hiking companions with random adjectives – sometimes just sounds – round most corners. 'Phwoar'. But you should see this place. In a park of plenty, here's the most plentiful. The head of the French Valley is a cirque formed by tall cliffs. Huge walls two kilometres high punctuate the western region, while the eastern face could be the planet's largest cathedral. Suspension bridges, which allow for just two to cross at a time, provide access to the valley across the clearest river I've seen, Rio del Frances. All around me, firetrees catch the autumn sunlight, providing the illusion that its evergreen vivid red flowers are actually igniting. While Chile is ineffably peaceful, it's not silent. The W Hike never is. Water gushes from everywhere: waterfalls, creeks and rivers; birds cry out; and sometimes I hear drumming as Magellanic woodpeckers search for insects in the trees of the surrounding forest. The path's much flatter in the French Valley. During the practice hike on day two, one of my fellow hikers – a grimacing, but jolly, Utahn with a dicky knee – surprised me when he smiled through his moustache and declared to no one in particular: 'I'm in that zone.' Is this what he meant? I'm seeing butterflies I'm not sure are really there. I'm hearing sweet, soft music in my head. And I'm grinning as if it's happy gas I'm sucking from my hydration pack, not water with the extra electrolyte tablet I add each morning because I think it makes me walk faster. We walk higher and higher up the valley wall through what looks like a Japanese ornamental garden. Below, Rio del Frances sparkles where it turns into rapids between its grey rock banks. Above, glaciers hang over the edge of the Grande glacier, like layers of icing oozing off a fresh-baked cake. DAYS SIX TO SEVEN: No pain, no gain We'll have a long, last dinner tonight, a final chance to bond, since we won't get to clean our teeth together in a communal bathroom next morning. How do I feel that I didn't do the W hike in one go, completing it like all the rest: east to west, or west to east? (We miss 13 kilometres of the W, a section east of the French Valley that connects with our first-day hike to the Base of the Towers). Well, I feel tired. Really tired. I hiked 68 kilometres. I walked for 30 hours, a lot of it uphill, a lot of it downhill. My legs ache and my blistered big right toe doesn't seem to care that I slept in my own room, not a shared dorm. On my return to Australia, a friend asks why I didn't camp along the trail to feel like I really did the hike. He told me of his journey with his 70-year-old father. Their tent nearly blew away one night in a violent storm; his hiking shoes disintegrated on the second day so he walked in the trainers he brought for the plane. They both suffered diarrhoea from drinking contaminated water. 'Maybe you answered your own question,' I suggest. Five other hikes to tackle in relative comfor t Haute Route, Europe Hike for nine days from Chamonix in France to the Matterhorn in Switzerland, sampling gourmet cuisine of the three countries (Italy, France and Switzerland) along the way. Numerous travel companies provide luxury guided tours with boutique accommodation in mountain villages. Loading Milford Track, New Zealand The iconic Kiwi hike, a 54-kilometre trek to Milford Sound on the South Island's wild west coast, can be done in comfort across four or five nights, staying in luxurious mountain lodges with gourmet meals and private rooms between November and April. Travel companies offer various experiences. Machu Picchu, Peru Take a seven-day fully guided tour of the lesser-known valleys surrounding Machu Picchu, such as the Lares and Sacred valleys, staying in boutique mountain lodges along the way. You'll still get to end your tour at this well-known wonder of the world, but you'll avoid the often booked-out Inca Trail, a four-day hike requiring nightly camping. Camino de Santiago, Europe Many travel companies offer all-levels-of-luxury tours hiking a portion of this 800 kilometre pilgrimage trail across (mostly) Spain. There are tours of between four and 30-days duration with accommodation everywhere from Benedictine monasteries to five-star private lodges. Appalachian Trail, US Dozens of luxury tour companies offer the opportunity to hike a portion of America's most famous hike, which begins in Georgia and ends in Maine, passing through 14 states and covering 3540 kilometres. Tours include inn-to-inn hiking, staying in the best accommodation available with meals at restaurants. The details Loading Tour Guided By Nature's seven-day/six-night guided tour of the W Hike in Torres del Paine National Park, with all meals included and accommodation at Kau Rio Serrano Lodge, from $9895 a person departing in November and April. See Fly Qantas ( and LATAM ( fly from Sydney to Santiago four times a week from $2500 return, with onward connections with LATAM to Puerto Natales (where guests are met).
Sydney Morning Herald
4 days ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
One of the world's most beautiful walks can now be done in style
Along a spiralling mountain trail on a morning when the air's so chilled and dry your breath feels ragged before it even leaves your diaphragm, I note that neither burgers nor beers from the night before are an ideal preparation for a 70-kilometre-or-so walk along South America's most famous hiking trail. 'Nothing in Patagonia is flat,' my guide, Patrick Smith (despite his notably Anglo moniker, he's very much a Chilean) warned. 'Even flat places in Patagonia are not flat.' And how about the notoriously wild, windy weather we may encounter here, amid one of the planet's last great icy wildernesses? 'The only thing I'm sure about the weather in Patagonia is that I'm never sure about the weather in Patagonia,' Smith says. Today it's windy but not 'Patagonia' windy. It's blowy enough for me to lose my hat, but Smith tells me an Irishman blew right off this mountain trail we are hiking. 'And last summer,' he says, 'I caught a Brazilian lady in the air and tackled her to the ground like a rugby player.' This is my first full day on the W Hike in Chile's Torres del Paine National Park. One of the world's most beautiful walks, it's a five-day, 74-kilometre journey that traverses valleys, glaciers, mountain lakes and the tallest peaks in southern Patagonia. It has long been the domain of the hardened hiker, one who camps along the way, or sleeps in dorm rooms within refugios (basic mountain huts), and who wakes at dawn to line up at buffets for cornflakes and scrambled eggs. But I'm doing the W differently. Global adventure company Guided By Nature, in partnership with Australian operator Tasmanian Walking Company, has launched a new seven-day, six-night luxury guided hike which makes one of the world's most revered adventure challenges accessible to a wider range of hikers. We'll hike almost the entire trail and return all but one night to boutique lodgings that serve three-course gourmet meals with matched Chilean wines. DAYS TWO TO THREE: Of scrambled eggs and fresh legs Just because our scrambled eggs are fluffier, doesn't mean our hiking trails are shorter, Smith and fellow guide Juan Ignacio Rios Villablanca (now there's a proper Patagonian guide's name) says at a pre-hike briefing. They tell us we will walk an average of 16 kilometres, between seven and 10 hours, each day. The W Hike can be completed west to east or east to west. We're going east to west, so the most challenging, steeper section of the trail is earlier in the trek. We can hike it with fresh legs. My fresh legs will tackle a 22-kilometre slog up and down 800 metres of elevation to the base of Torres del Paine National Park's most iconic landform: Torres del Paine, three jagged granite peaks carved out by glaciers and erosion over millions of years and rising to almost 3000 metres. This section of the W Hike is the busiest, particularly in summer. Most of the 250,000 hikers who visit each year descend on the park between December and March. Guided By Nature's guided hikes are offered in November and April and the park is relatively deserted today as I traverse a dusty dirt road. Guanacos, a species of camelid native to South America and closely related to the llama, feed skittishly by the roadside. They're like hamburger patties to the park's most celebrated resident, the puma, though Villablanca says puma sightings are rare, even though we are moving through an area with the world's highest density of the creatures. They hunt mostly at night and are notoriously stealthy. 'If you're lucky enough to see a puma,' he says. 'It has already seen you 10 times.' But five minutes into our hike, three pumas run right across the trail in front of me, chasing a herd of doomed European hares. Villablanca shakes his head and grins. 'It's all downhill from here,' he says. He's wrong, of course. It's so uphill that my muscles begin to feel like fraying rubber bands. I climb on rocky trails up and across the sheer sides of mountains, through lenga (beech) forest, along suspension bridges over the glassy Asencio River, giving way to locals carrying supplies on horseback. The trail gets perpendicular near the top (fortuitous that I found the hiking shoes I'd stashed in a box in my storage shed after my last hike, around 2019). But there's a reward for those who push through pain to get to the top: one of the world's most famous alpine vistas. Across a jade-coloured lake distorted by glacial 'flour', produced when rocks are ground down by glaciers across millions of years, lie the Torres Del Paine. The first tourist to see these, a 24-year-old Scottish travel writer named Lady Florence Dixie who travelled here by horse in 1879, described them as 'three tall peaks of reddish hue and in sharp exact facsimiles of Cleopatra's needles'. Her accounts provided the outside world with its first glimpse of a wilderness at the end of the world. Going downhill requires an entirely different set of muscles. Gravity helps, at least initially, and then it turns on me as I discover delicate tendons necessary for braking on the outside of both knees I never knew I had. By the end of the trail, I hobble into the carpark like I'd just fought a war. I slept in a tent when I climbed Kilimanjaro; I used Asia's sketchiest squat toilets on a trek in the Indian Himalayas; but now a van is here to transport me to my private lodge. The lodge's lounge looks out to a calm lake and there's a log fire burning. A bottle of Chilean Carmenere, which looks to have my name on it, and a meal of grilled prawns, local lamb and calafate berry ice-cream follow. Through floor-to-ceiling windows I wouldn't dare cover with curtains, I see the snow-capped mountains of the Paine massif lit by a smudge of twinkling Milky Way. I fall asleep under my duck-down duvet long before I get to ponder if I've gone soft in middle age. DAYS FOUR TO FIVE: A dorm is now the norm Adios chef Valeska, ciao linen sheets. Today I hike to a refugio and a shared dorm room. Torres del Paine may be famous for winds that can reach 180km/h and beyond, but on this brisk, blue-sky April morning, I can't feel a breath of it. So I ride on the deck of a catamaran across Lake Pehoe, the mountains reflected on its surface. Today we hike the western edge of the W trail to Grey glacier, the last leg for those walking east to west. It's a shorter trek and a respite after yesterday's skip the central valley for now: that's the power you yield when you dissect an arduous hike like this to make it more user-friendly. I love the flatness of this trail, staring up at mountains that dazzle with refracted sunlight. Then it climbs and climbs and climbs. Now I scramble along a narrow rocky crest between the park's tallest peak, Cerro Paine Grande (2884 metres) and Grey Lake below. Cascades from Paine Grande gush out, feeding the tiny creeks I cross. Straight ahead is Grey Glacier, part of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, the world's second-largest extra-polar icefield, which once covered all of southern Chile and Argentina. Beside it is Grey refugio, a two-star hut with room for 60 hikers. Inside I find a bar with a five-star view of the mountain range, a worthy spot to rest hamstrings, quadriceps and calves that have been forced to eccentrically contract to prevent a tumble down the mountain paths. Dinner's a passable buffet of pasta and grilled chicken at a table in the corner, where I see the mountain in sunset turn a shade of lilac. Later, I'm reminded of what it's like to share a dorm room: the race to get to sleep to beat the other snorers, the shuddering on your bunk as your upstairs neighbour sneaks off to the toilet at 2.30am. I'm totally OK that we're doing it for just one night. Next morning, I take a Zodiac to the edge of Grey glacier, passing icebergs along the way. The glacier's as blue as it is white – air bubbles squeezed out of the glacier across hundreds of years make it appear bright blue. I wear crampons to grip the slippery surface and use an ice axe for stability to walk across the ice, stopping at a lagoon as turquoise as any in the South Pacific. I pick at the edge of the water and place the tiny shards of centuries-old ice into my mouth. Below the surface, there are caves. I descend into one along a rope attached by a guide. Below, water flows through a chamber within the cave, just like a waterslide. The landscape changes as the ice melts, creating new lagoons and caves between which the guides build new paths. Melts can reveal hidden wonders. In 2022, palaeontologists unearthed fossilised remains of a dolphin-like creature – an ichthyosaurs – from within the boundaries of the Torres del Paine National Park. These creatures are thought to have existed between 90 and 245 million years ago. We leave the ice and retreat to a grey-sand beach to catch a catamaran to where our van driver waits for us. Tonight, I don't wear thongs in the shower. DAY SIX: In a world of shock and phwoar Today we're returning to the centre of the W, but where two days prior we walked west to Grey glacier, now we're hiking east, to the French Valley. Today there's even less wind than days four and five and the stillness makes the landscape look surreal. I bug my hiking companions with random adjectives – sometimes just sounds – round most corners. 'Phwoar'. But you should see this place. In a park of plenty, here's the most plentiful. The head of the French Valley is a cirque formed by tall cliffs. Huge walls two kilometres high punctuate the western region, while the eastern face could be the planet's largest cathedral. Suspension bridges, which allow for just two to cross at a time, provide access to the valley across the clearest river I've seen, Rio del Frances. All around me, firetrees catch the autumn sunlight, providing the illusion that its evergreen vivid red flowers are actually igniting. While Chile is ineffably peaceful, it's not silent. The W Hike never is. Water gushes from everywhere: waterfalls, creeks and rivers; birds cry out; and sometimes I hear drumming as Magellanic woodpeckers search for insects in the trees of the surrounding forest. The path's much flatter in the French Valley. During the practice hike on day two, one of my fellow hikers – a grimacing, but jolly, Utahn with a dicky knee – surprised me when he smiled through his moustache and declared to no one in particular: 'I'm in that zone.' Is this what he meant? I'm seeing butterflies I'm not sure are really there. I'm hearing sweet, soft music in my head. And I'm grinning as if it's happy gas I'm sucking from my hydration pack, not water with the extra electrolyte tablet I add each morning because I think it makes me walk faster. We walk higher and higher up the valley wall through what looks like a Japanese ornamental garden. Below, Rio del Frances sparkles where it turns into rapids between its grey rock banks. Above, glaciers hang over the edge of the Grande glacier, like layers of icing oozing off a fresh-baked cake. DAYS SIX TO SEVEN: No pain, no gain We'll have a long, last dinner tonight, a final chance to bond, since we won't get to clean our teeth together in a communal bathroom next morning. How do I feel that I didn't do the W hike in one go, completing it like all the rest: east to west, or west to east? (We miss 13 kilometres of the W, a section east of the French Valley that connects with our first-day hike to the Base of the Towers). Well, I feel tired. Really tired. I hiked 68 kilometres. I walked for 30 hours, a lot of it uphill, a lot of it downhill. My legs ache and my blistered big right toe doesn't seem to care that I slept in my own room, not a shared dorm. On my return to Australia, a friend asks why I didn't camp along the trail to feel like I really did the hike. He told me of his journey with his 70-year-old father. Their tent nearly blew away one night in a violent storm; his hiking shoes disintegrated on the second day so he walked in the trainers he brought for the plane. They both suffered diarrhoea from drinking contaminated water. 'Maybe you answered your own question,' I suggest. Five other hikes to tackle in relative comfor t Haute Route, Europe Hike for nine days from Chamonix in France to the Matterhorn in Switzerland, sampling gourmet cuisine of the three countries (Italy, France and Switzerland) along the way. Numerous travel companies provide luxury guided tours with boutique accommodation in mountain villages. Loading Milford Track, New Zealand The iconic Kiwi hike, a 54-kilometre trek to Milford Sound on the South Island's wild west coast, can be done in comfort across four or five nights, staying in luxurious mountain lodges with gourmet meals and private rooms between November and April. Travel companies offer various experiences. Machu Picchu, Peru Take a seven-day fully guided tour of the lesser-known valleys surrounding Machu Picchu, such as the Lares and Sacred valleys, staying in boutique mountain lodges along the way. You'll still get to end your tour at this well-known wonder of the world, but you'll avoid the often booked-out Inca Trail, a four-day hike requiring nightly camping. Camino de Santiago, Europe Many travel companies offer all-levels-of-luxury tours hiking a portion of this 800 kilometre pilgrimage trail across (mostly) Spain. There are tours of between four and 30-days duration with accommodation everywhere from Benedictine monasteries to five-star private lodges. Appalachian Trail, US Dozens of luxury tour companies offer the opportunity to hike a portion of America's most famous hike, which begins in Georgia and ends in Maine, passing through 14 states and covering 3540 kilometres. Tours include inn-to-inn hiking, staying in the best accommodation available with meals at restaurants. The details Loading Tour Guided By Nature's seven-day/six-night guided tour of the W Hike in Torres del Paine National Park, with all meals included and accommodation at Kau Rio Serrano Lodge, from $9895 a person departing in November and April. See Fly Qantas ( and LATAM ( fly from Sydney to Santiago four times a week from $2500 return, with onward connections with LATAM to Puerto Natales (where guests are met).
Yahoo
23-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Peabody Energy Corporation (BTU): A Bull Case Theory
We came across a bullish thesis on Peabody Energy Corporation on In this article, we will summarize the bull's thesis on BTU. Peabody Energy Corporation's share was trading at $14.27 as of 19th June. BTU's trailing P/E was 5.29 according to Yahoo Finance. An aerial view of an open cut coal mine, showing the vastness of the company's mining operations. Peabody Energy Corp (BTU) has remained rangebound for over two years, prompting renewed investor attention amid a transformative acquisition. The company, a major producer of thermal and metallurgical coal in the U.S. and Australia, is acquiring four met coal mines from Anglo American for $2.3 billion plus earnouts—nearly matching its $2.7 billion market cap. This deal significantly reshapes BTU's profile, potentially shifting met coal to two-thirds of its EBITDA by 2026. Historically, two-thirds of EBITDA came from thermal coal, but the Anglo assets—three operating mines producing 11.2 million tons annually, alongside BTU's Centurion project and the potentially restarted Grosvenor mine, could add up to $1.2 billion in met coal EBITDA alone. Management touts attractive deal economics, estimating the purchase at 3.1x EBITDA post-synergies. However, this shift comes with leverage and deferred shareholder returns. Net debt is projected to rise to $1.65 billion post-close, making BTU the only coal major with net debt, while capex for mine development remains high. Analysts peg 2026 EBITDA from core operations at $865 million, with another $400 million from new project optionality. On an EV of $4.35 billion, BTU trades at 2.7x 2026 EBITDA, dropping to 2.2x if upside options are realized without further debt. A 3.5x multiple on core EBITDA yields a $33 share price (+50%), or $44 at $2 billion EBITDA. However, execution risk is high due to volatile coal prices, heavy fixed costs, and the timing of cash flow realization. BTU resembles a leveraged bet on stable coal markets—compelling, but high stakes. Previously, we covered a bullish thesis on Peabody Energy Corporation (BTU) by Hugo Navarro in January 2025, which highlighted the company's strategic acquisition and upside potential from rising metallurgical coal prices. The company's stock price has depreciated by approximately 24% since our coverage. This is because coal prices weakened and sentiment turned cautious. The thesis still stands as supply constraints persist. Value Don't Lie shares a similar view but emphasizes execution risk and capital structure. Peabody Energy Corporation is not on our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 42 hedge fund portfolios held BTU at the end of the first quarter, which was 41 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the risk and potential of BTU as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and have limited downside risk. If you are looking for an extremely cheap AI stock that is also a major beneficiary of Trump tariffs and onshoring, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. READ NEXT: 8 Best Wide Moat Stocks to Buy Now and 30 Most Important AI Stocks According to BlackRock. Disclosure: None Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data
