China African Precious Metals to Buy South African Gold Mine
August 05, 2011, 1:10 PM EDTBy Carli Lourens
(Updates with transaction adviser in fourth paragraph.)
Aug. 5 (Bloomberg) -- China African Precious Metals Ltd., affiliated to Hong Kong’s SSC Mandarin Holdings Ltd., will buy Pamodzi Gold Orkney Ltd. in South Africa for 150 million rand ($22 million), the provisional liquidator of the mine said.
“It is expected that it will spend more than 525 million rand on mine developments and on erecting a new gold plant at the mine,” the liquidator said today in a statement. Orkney may be in full production a year from deal completion, it said.
Aurora Empowerment Systems Ltd., led by a grandson of Nelson Mandela and nephew of President Jacob Zuma, was ordered by the liquidator to vacate the mine in May as workers went unpaid. Aurora had planned to buy the mine and others from Pamodzi Gold Ltd., which went bankrupt in 2009 and had been given operational rights in the meantime.
China African Precious Metals, or CAPM, is 74 percent-owned by Superb Gold Ltd., an affiliate of the SSC, according to today’s statement from Icon Insolvency Practitioners Ltd. A black shareholders’ group led by Elias Khumalo owns the rest. The transaction adviser is Standard Bank Group Ltd.
Pamodzi’s Modderfontein, Grootvlei, Nigel and East Rand operations will also be sold, the liquidator said in an advertisement in Johannesburg-based newspaper Business Day in June.
--Editors: Amanda Jordan, John Viljoen
To contact the reporter on this story: Carli Lourens in Johannesburg at clourens@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Viljoen at jviljoen@bloomberg.net
