Free cash flow increased by 93% to $4.9 billion, halving net debt to $4.5 billion.

Mark Cutifani, Chief Executive of Anglo American, said: “We have delivered a 93% increase in attributable free cash flow, almost halving net debt to $4.5 billion at the year end. These strong financial results benefit from transformed productivities and efficiencies across our business – including a 28% productivity improvement in 2017 alone – together with our portfolio upgrading and improved prices for many of our products. Our increased dividend for the second half equates to our targeted level of 40% of underlying earnings, totalling $1.02 per share for the year as a whole.

“We exceeded our cost and volume improvement target for the year, achieving $1.1 billion of underlying EBITDA benefit. Over the last five years, we have now delivered a $4.2 billion annual underlying EBITDA improvement. While we have already driven a material operational turnaround, we believe there is significant additional upside within the business both through further operating gains and from selected organic growth options. As part of how we run the business, we are therefore targeting an additional $3-4 billion annual run‑rate improvement by 2022 from production volumes, productivity improvements and cost reductions.”

Highlights – year ended 31 December 2017

• Delivered attributable free cash flow* of $4.9 billion, a 93% increase
• Reduced net debt* to $4.5 billion, a 47% reduction, equal to 0.5x net debt / EBITDA
• Generated underlying EBITDA* of $8.8 billion, a 45% increase
• Profit attributable to equity shareholders doubled to $3.2 billion
• Achieved cost and volume improvements of $1.1 billion – in excess of target
• Targeting additional $3-4 billion annual underlying EBITDA run-rate improvement by 2022
• Increased dividend of 54 US cents per share for the second half, equal to 40% of second half underlying earnings*

  - Total dividend payable for 2017 of $1.02 per share

Notes to the highlights and table are shown at the bottom of this section.

Words with this symbol * are defined as Alternative Performance Measures (‘APMs’). For more information on the APMs used by the Group, including definitions, please refer to the Alternative Performance Measures section on page 57 of the PDF version of this release.

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