Mining company Anglo American has suspended dividends and share buybacks and will cut 19,000 jobs to retain cash after metal prices slumped.
Full-year net income fell to $5.2 billion from $7.3 billion a year earlier, London-based Anglo said today in a statement today. So-called underlying earnings fell to $4.36 a share.
Anglo expects “continuing volatility and weakness in commodity prices,” chief executive officer Cynthia Carroll said in the statement.
Zinc for delivery in three months on the London Metal Exchange averaged $1,901 a metric ton, down 41 per cent. Anglo has a 45 per cent stake in De Beers, the
world’s largest producer of diamonds, the price of which fell for the first time in five years in 2008.
Anglo Platinum, 77 per cent-owned by Anglo American, said last week it would cut 10,000 jobs by the end of 2009 by firing contract workers and not replacing permanent staff that leave.
Standard & Poor’s said December 18th it may cut Anglo American’s debt ratings, currently A-/A-2, by as much as two levels as slowing world economies hurt the company’s cash flow and credit quality.
Anglo American uses so-called underlying earnings, or profit attributable to equity shareholders and adjusted for the effect of special items, re-measurements and related tax and minority interests.
Bloomberg