Anglo American steps up its sell-off as losses hit £3.8 billion

Anglo American boss Mark Cutifani has put even more of the struggling miner’s assets on the sales block as the FTSE 100 company racked up eye-watering losses of $5.5 billion (£3.8 billion).

Anglo, which last year shelved its dividend and announced plans to cut around 80,000 staff through sell-offs and redundancies, is desperately attempting to weather a commodities market rout.

The miner’s losses for 2015, its worst for a decade and driven by $3.8 billion in writedowns, have prompted Cutifani to raise the firm’s target for disposals from the originally planned $3 billion-$4 billion to $5 billion-$6 billion.

This is to help reduce debts to below $10 billion.

Concerns over the balance sheet and lingering low prices prompted ratings agency Moody’s to cut its debt to junk status overnight.

Anglo’s iron-ore unit is up for sale, with Cutifani ready to listen to offers for its 70% stake in Kumba Iron Ore, Africa’s biggest miner of the steelmaking ingredient.

“The company has initiated a review to consider options to exit from KIO at the appropriate time, including a potential spin-out,” it said.

The division’s profits slumped 61% to $739 million last year, largely down to the 42% China-driven plummet in iron ore prices to an average $56 a tonne.

Cutifani also confirmed that Anglo plans completely to pull out of its coal business as part of its strategic review, “at the right time, for the right value”.

The latest moves will leave the miner focused on three areas.