JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Anglo American Platinum, the world’s biggest platinum producer, reported a worse than expected 46 percent fall in annual profit on Monday, hit by South African mining strikes and falling prices.
Amplats, the South African unit of global miner Anglo American, said headline EPS totaled 301 cents in the year ending December, well below 483 cents estimate in a Reuters poll of 10 analysts.
Headline EPS, the main profit measure in South Africa, strips out certain one-off items.
The platinum mining industry is in the middle of a shake-up that includes selling-off underperforming assets as it struggles to recover from last year’s five-month platinum strike.
The mining sector is also under pressure from the falling price platinum, which has dropped about 20 percent since July last year.
