Investors initially lopped 6.4 percent off the company's shares, but they clawed back some of those losses to stand 2.64 per cent down at 258 rand at 14105 GMT, underperforming the Johannsburg gold sector which declined by just 0.42 per cent. AngloGold's attributable profit fell to 415 million rand ($60.7 million) in the three months ended March 31, from 532 million rand in the previous December quarter. Headline earnings per share fell to 420 cents from a previous 494 cents - which compared poorly with forecasts of between 440 cents and 505 cents a share. "Five of our 13 South African mines performed poorly, resulting in a second disappointing quarter by the South African domain," AngloGold chief executive officer Bobby Godsell said.

Godsell says anglogold made mistakes Godsell told an analysts' presentation that AngloGold had targeted five mines where production had fallen behind because of infrastructure, geographical and workforce problems. "We have missed a number of tricks within the regional operations and we must get those things right and we must make sure the South African production ramps to a high-margin, value- creating production world wide," he said. "We have made mistakes, yes. What we are saying is here are things we could have got right but failed to.

We have identified them and we will get them right," he said. General managers of the five mines said they were confident production levels would improve in the next few quarters on the back of a range of programmes they were implementing. But analysts were more sceptical, noting that gold prices have fallen to around $274 an ounce from $326 in October 1999.