Zimbabwe, Zimplats agree 51 pct ownwership transfer

Zimbabwe and Impala Platinum, the world’s second largest platinum producer, said on Tuesday they agreed on the transfer of a 51 percent stake in the company’s local unit Zimplats to black Zimbabwean investors, as required by the government.“Essentially we have found each other and that augurs well for the mining industry in Zimbabwe,” Implats chief executive David Brown told a news conference after a joint statement confirmed the deal.The agreement ends a war of words between the government and Implats over the ownership requirement, which had jolted investor confidence in the southern African state and 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.It remained unclear however how the cash-strapped Zimbabwean government would pay for the stake worth hundreds of millions of dollars.The joint statement said the 51 percent would be broken down as follows: 10 percent to the community, another 10 percent to Zimplats employees and 31 percent to the state’s National Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Fund.Empowerment Minister Saviour Kasukuwere told Reuters after the press conference: “There’s no deadline on when the finer details of the transaction will be worked out.”“The details are about the value. How do they value the shares? All that is to be worked out,” he said.