{"id":8704,"date":"2012-03-08T14:59:49","date_gmt":"2012-03-08T12:59:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/03\/update-1-implats-dispute-with-zimbabwe-deepens\/"},"modified":"2012-03-08T14:59:49","modified_gmt":"2012-03-08T12:59:49","slug":"update-1-implats-dispute-with-zimbabwe-deepens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/update-1-implats-dispute-with-zimbabwe-deepens\/","title":{"rendered":"UPDATE 1-Implats dispute with Zimbabwe deepens"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>(Updates with background, share price)<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">JOHANNESBURG, March 8<\/span> (Reuters) &#8211; A war of words<br \/>\nbetween South Africa&#8217;s Impala Platinum and Zimbabwe<br \/>\nintensified on Thursday, when the world&#8217;s second-biggest<br \/>\nplatinum producer denied offering to hand over a stake in its<br \/>\nlocal unit to the government.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>A senior Zimbabwean minister told Reuters on Wednesday<br \/>\nImplats had agreed to cede the 29.5 percent stake in Zimplats<br \/>\n under a new law to transfer majority ownership of<br \/>\nforeign companies to local blacks.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Implats said this was not the case.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Implats has not made an irrevocable offer to the Zimbabwe<br \/>\ngovernment today,&#8221; the company said in a two-sentence statement.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Implats has argued that the stake, worth more than $300<br \/>\nmillion, need not be handed over because it was promised<br \/>\n&#8217;empowerment credits&#8217; for mining rights it returned to the<br \/>\nZimbabwean government in 2006.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Senior Implats executive Johan Theron said that as far he<br \/>\nwas aware no letter had been sent to Harare, but the Implats<br \/>\nboard would meet on Friday to discuss the issue.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A range of options will be put to the board,&#8221; he said,<br \/>\nadding that Implats remained committed to finding a solution to<br \/>\nthe problem.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Implats shares have fallen 3.3 percent since Feb. 22 when<br \/>\nZimbabwe issued the company with an ultimatum over the Zimplats<br \/>\nstake. Rival Anglo American Platinum has dropped 1.9<br \/>\npercent over the same period.\t<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by David Dolan and Sherilee Lakmidas; Editing by Ed<br \/>\nCropley)<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright\">\n<p>         \t\t\u00a9 Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Updates with background, share price) JOHANNESBURG, March 8 (Reuters) &#8211; A war of words between South Africa&#8217;s Impala Platinum and Zimbabwe intensified on Thursday, when the world&#8217;s second-biggest platinum producer denied offering to hand over a stake in its local unit to the government. A senior Zimbabwean minister told Reuters on Wednesday Implats had agreed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-8704","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8704\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}