Anglo American plans fresh job cuts as part of restructuring

Anglo American Plc is planning more job cuts at corporate offices in Johannesburg and London as it restructures its business by selling assets and spinning off its platinum unit.

The company has sent notices to employees who are likely to be affected, people with knowledge of the matter said, asking not to be identified because Anglo hasn’t made a public announcement.

The job cuts are in line with the company’s disposals and other restructuring plans, Anglo said in response to queries. Consultations have just begun and the minerals producer has yet to determine the number of people affected, it said.

Anglo began restructuring the business last year after it had to fend off a $43 billion takeover bid by rival BHP Group Ltd.

It has sold its coking-coal and nickel businesses and is on track to spin off most of its controlling holding in Anglo American Platinum Ltd. by June, the company said. It also plans to either sell or hold an initial public offering for its De Beers unit, the world’s biggest diamond company.

“There are clearly also a great many function support roles that move to the businesses we are divesting and demerging, including Anglo American Platinum, to ensure they are set up on a standalone basis,” the company said in a later statement.

Most of its corporate staff are in South Africa, where the company was founded by Ernest Oppenheimer in 1917 to exploit the world’s biggest gold field, the Witwatersrand. During the isolation brought by apartheid, it expanded from mining into businesses ranging from banking to paper making.

After an initial round of divestments, it moved its headquarters to London in 1998.

The company slashed jobs at its main South African corporate office in 2023 and later fired workers at its iron-ore unit, which it is retaining, and at Amplats.

(By Loni Prinsloo, Antony Sguazzin and William Clowes)