Anglo-American cuts capex plans

The dramatic fall in commodity prices in recent months has promoted Anglo-American, the world's fourth biggest diversified miner, to slash capital expenditure plans for 2009 by 50 per cent.

The group, which announced a review of next year' spending plans last week, announced yesterday that it would cut spending by $4.5bn next year saying that it needed to adjust its investment plans "at a time when the mining industry has experienced an unprecedented period of rapid declines in commodity prices due to global economic uncertainty".

The group's stock has lost half its value in the last 12 months, but the capex cuts were welcomed yesterday with the group's shares closing up 5.4 per cent at 1650p.