ANGLO American said on Thursday it was considering yet another impairment of its diamond business De Beers – its third in the last three years – amid a decline in average prices during 2025.
This comes at a busy time for the century-old miner. In addition to finalising the sale of non-core assets – including De Beers – it is merging with Canada’s Teck Resources, a transaction that received shareholder and government approval late last year. The merged entity will be known as Anglo-Teck.
Anglo booked an impairment charge of $2.9bn on De Beers in February last year, which followed a $1.6bn writedown of the unit in 2024. Anglo, which owns 85% of De Beers, gave precious little detail on its plans for the sale of the firm, saying it was “progressing”.
Commenting in a fourth quarter production update, Anglo said trading conditions in diamonds “continued to be challenging in the quarter amid persistent industry, geopolitical and tariff uncertainty”.
De Beers’ average realised diamond price declined 7% to $142 per carat in 2025, a condition driven by a 12% decrease in the average rough price index.
But the market also fell under pressure because Anglo sold goods from inventory at below cost. As these goods were predominantly lower value, the equivalent price index reduction would have been 25% year-on-year, said Anglo.
The implication is the market demonstrated a modicum of resiliance.
De Beers also sold more diamonds in the fourth quarter – 5.9 million carats – resulting in higher sales revenue of $571m compared to $543m in revenue from 4.6 million carats in sales for the corresponding period in 2024.
Despite this, a write-down was being considered, said Anglo. “The group is undertaking an impairment review of De Beers’ carrying value, assessing the impact of diamond market conditions, which could potentially lead to an impairment at the full year results,” it said.
The continued underperformance of the diamond market comes as Anglo seeks a buyer for its 85% stake in De Beers. Duncan Wanblad, CEO of Anglo American said merely his company was “progressing” the sale.
A frontrunner for De Beers is a consortium led by former MD of the diamond company Gareth Penny but Botswana, which owns 15% of De Beers, said it also wanted to take control of the firm. Namibia has also expressed an interest in becoming a shareholder.
The proposed sale of De Beers is part of a radical restructuring unveiled by Wanblad in 2024. Amplats, its platinum unit, was demerged in June 2025 but the sale of its metallurgical coal mines in Australia hit a stumbling block when buyer Peabody Energy terminated the deal amid a fire at Moranbah North mine.
Wanblad said today the formal sale process for steelmaking coal was “progressing well”, but he gave no additional details of alternate buyers to Peabody Energy, or plans by Anglo to pursue compensation from the US firm.
Copper
A key element of Anglo-Teck is the increase in copper production and improved optionality over expansion. In its fourth quarter report, Anglo cut copper guidance for the current financial year to 700,000 to 760,000 tons from 760-820,000t previously.
The group also reduced 2027 guidance to 750-810,000t but added new guidance for 2028 of 790-850t. Production for 2025 of was 695,000t, roughly flat year-on-year and just about making guidance of 690-750,000t.
“Copper production missed by 5%, with Quellaveco (Anglo’s Peru mine) falling short by 10% on lower than expected grades,” said Goldman Sachs of its estimate which was line with Visible Alpha consensus.
“The Collahuasi (Chile mine) shortfall was already known, while Los Bronces (Chile) delivered a strong finish to the year,” the banks said. “Adjusting for the Collahuasi miss, the underlying copper miss narrows to roughly 2%, which we think more closely reflects what the market had already priced in,” it said.
