Anglo American - De Beers results and preview

Anglo American had their last visible (although not really anymore) big division report Friday. And I am talking about De Beers. The contribution by De Beers to Anglo American earnings is 302 million Dollars. Or 2.189 billion Rands, more or less. Expect Anglo American results on Friday, the best thing about these results is that three biggies have been made public already, Anglo Platinum, Kumba Iron Ore and of course now De Beers. The three other "big issues" will be a) Their coal division (thermal and metallurgical) must have been cooking (coking – hah-hah), b) How they are progressing in Brazil with that massive Iron ore project (to production around late 2013 it will cost +30 billion ZAR by my guesstimates) and c) How much did copper contribute at these elevated price levels.

Check out the headlines from the Anglo De Beers results release: "Total sales by the De Beers Group were US$5.88 billion for the full year, a 53 per cent increase compared with 2009. Sales of rough diamonds by the DTC were US$5.08 billion (2009: US$3.23 billion)." as a direct result of "Strong demand (driving) a rebound in the prices of DTC rough diamonds by an average of 27 per cent over the year to levels which are above those which prevailed prior to the onset of the economic crisis."

A strong turnaround in the year, the Anglo release suggests as much, it was a stabilization period through to a strong recovery period. In truth diamonds is our least favourite commodity here at Vestact, although, and this is a big although, we are strong believers in the luxury goods market. So, we are happy that diamond sales have been fast and furious. Full numbers Friday.