Found the following commentary on Anglo quite interesting interesting (compared to the commentary on Lonmin's management I've read which has been negative)
Source: http://www.moneyweb....balance-sheets/
Anglo American, I think, has acted very proactively in the last year. They have sold down one of their copper mines, they’ve sold down Tarmac. So they’ve realised that commodity prices are coming down and they’ve done something positive about realigning it. They’ve also give us a very detailed plan of how they are going to reduce staff across he organisation, including head office. So they are already bringing down costs and I think this is what’s going to happen.
Also I think what Anglo American is doing, is they are bringing down their debt levels, which is quite positive. And we are seeing that with Glencore. But Glencore is quite highly leveraged at the moment, so that’s why you are seeing some quite drastic action taking place, and we are seeing more action into 2016 to bring their debt levels down from about $30bn to about $20bn. I think that is going to happen across the board. So we think Anglos will come through a leaner and meaner company in the next couple of years.
We think Billiton has got a bit of an issue with its capex programme and its progressive dividend policy with these low prices. Something is going to have to give, but I think most companies will bring down their capex spend and hunker down until supply-demand fundamentals get back into balance.
Edited by vlam, 30 November 2015 - 10:13 PM.
