Diversified miner Anglo American posts $1.5bn loss, led by low prices and rising costs for platinum, metallurgical coal, copper, iron ore and manganese NEARLY all divisions within Anglo American’s broad suite of commodities posted steep falls in earnings, resulting in Anglo posting a full-year loss of $1.49bn for 2012 compared with a $6bn profit a year earlier."This decrease in underlying operating profit was mainly driven by the platinum, metallurgical coal, iron ore and manganese, and copper business units, whose financial performance was affected by lower prices and higher costs, with the exception of metallurgical coal, where costs decreased," Anglo said in results for the year to end-December."There was a decline in realised prices across the majority of commodities produced by the group," it said.Anglo’s revenue fell 10% to $32.8bn. Underlying earnings per share, which excludes one-off items, fell by 55% to $2.26. It paid a final dividend of $0.53 per share, bringing the total...

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