The Week Ahead: Anglo American to flesh out restructuring plan

The Week Ahead

Anglo American is the world’s largest platinum producer (Getty Images)

Shareholders in Anglo American will be looking for more details on the miner’s restructuring plans in tomorrow’s annual results, which are expected to show a heavy fall in profits.

Analysts forecast that underlying earnings – not including writedowns, which are likely to force it into the red – will have slumped from $7.8bn (£5.4bn) in 2014 to $4.8bn last year.

Chief executive Mark Cutifani took drastic action in December to address the worldwide rout in commodity markets by revealing plans to slash more than 80,000 jobs by 2017, shelve the dividend, and sell off more than half the company’s mines.

That followed a savage 2015 for the mining sector as demand from metals-hungry China slowed. Anglo American was the worst-performing stock in the FTSE 100 last year.

Asda’s plan for stemming falling sales will be revealed along with the supermarket’s annual results on Thursday. It will also report on trading over the crucial Christmas period, which proved to be a good one for rivals Sainsbury’s and Morrisons.

Last month Asda said it planned to invest £500m in cutting prices to fight off the rise of German discounters Aldi and Lidl, which have eaten into the market shares of the big four grocers.

Elsewhere, consumer goods giant Reckitt Benckiser is due to release its annual results today. Broker Numis is forecasting like-for-like sales growth of 6 per cent, but it warned that the Durex-to-Nurofen group could take a 5 per cent hit on foreign exchange movements.

On Thursday, aerospace and defence giant BAE Systems reveals its annual results, while Centrica is expected to post a fall in annual profits as the global oil crisis takes its toll on the British Gas owner.

There are also full-year results on Wednesday from the online trading company Plus500 and on Friday from the investment giant Standard Life.

Chinese markets are back in action after being shut last week for the Chinese new year. Chris Beauchamp, senior market analyst at the spread-betting firm IG, said: “The return of China to the market fray could be key for further gains, although a couple of days of volatility as they play catch-up cannot be ruled out.”