Rio Tinto CEO defends miner as ‘cash machine’ amid stock retreat

As plummeting iron-ore prices weighed on Rio Tinto Group’s stock for a seventh-straight trading day, CEO Jean-Sebastien Jacques defended the miner as a “cash machine” that will keep rewarding shareholders.

“We have a cash machine,” the CEO said Thursday in an interview on Bloomberg TV. The “strong quality of the asset portfolio will generate cash no matter where we are in the cycle.”