* Platinum miner accepts majority local stake requirement
* Remains unclear if and how government will pay
* Other companies likely to face similar demands
By Nelson Banya and Ed Stoddard
HARARE/JOHANNESBURG March 13 (Reuters) – Impala
Platinum, the world’s second-biggest platinum producer,
has bowed to Zimbabwe’s pressure to surrender a 51 percent stake
in its Zimplats unit to local black investors, the
company announced on Tuesday.
The cave-in followed months of wrangling over the ownership
requirement, which has further jolted investor
confidence in the southern African state. The demand that
foreign-owned companies, particularly miners, transfer a 51
percent stake in local operations to black investors was widely
seen as a populist tactic by President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF
party in the run-up to elections expected later this year.
In a dramatic turnaround on Tuesday, Implats’ chief
executive David Brown, who last year insisted that “51 percent
equity just does not work,” told a news conference in Harare his
company had accepted the requirement.
“Essentially we have found each other and that
augurs well for the mining industry in Zimbabwe,” Brown said.
It remained unclear how the cash-strapped Zimbabwean
government would pay for the stake, worth hundreds of millions
of dollars.
Continued…
