Eastern Platinum (Eastplats) listed on the JSE on Monday morning under the “Resources, Mining-Platinum” sector.
With effect from Monday May 28, Eastplats’s subsidiary Barplats Investments will cease to trade on the JSE and shareholders in Barplats will receive 0,98 of an Eastplats common share and 70 South African cents for every Barplats share held.
“While Eastplats will not be raising any equity concurrent with the listing, the JSE listing will enable us to access South Africa’s capital market and increase our investor base in an environment in which the PGM sector is well understood,” said Eastplats president and CEO Ian Rozier.
“Our inward listing on the JSE, made possible by South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel’s February 2004 decision to allow non-South African companies to obtain a secondary listing on the JSE, will present a new and exciting option to South African investors,” he added.
Canadian-based Eastplats is one of the fastest-growing platinum-group-metals (PGM) producers, with a current operational base of more than 100Â 000 PGM ounces a year, with plans to increase this to about 450Â 000 PGM ounces by 2010.
The company was formed in 2003 with the objective of becoming a major producer of PGMs in South Africa. In just three years, it has acquired a portfolio of high-grade platinum and rhodium-rich deposits in South Africa’s Bushveld igneous complex containing more than 85-million ounces of PGMs.
The Bushveld complex is internationally recognised as containing the world’s largest resource of PGMs. This area is geologically remarkable for its shallow deposits of PGMs, some of which are at or near surface, allowing for highly cost-effective and efficient extraction.
In 2006, Eastplats became Canada’s largest PGMs producer when it acquired a 69% indirect interest in Barplats. The acquisition was accompanied by a successful Can$150-million capital-raising campaign, much of which will be invested in the Barplats operations.
Barplats is an established PGM mining company with assets on both the western and eastern limb of the Bushveld complex. Its two primary assets are the Crocodile River Mine on the western limb of the Bushveld complex and the Kennedy’s Vale project located on the eastern limb of the Bushveld complex in Mpumalanga.
Earlier in May, Eastplats completed a $200-million capital raising and announced plans to refurbish the existing Crocodile River Mine PGM smelter.
Eastplats’s other assets are located in the eastern limb of the Bushveld, including the Spitzkop deposit (which is immediately adjacent to the Kennedy’s Vale project) and the Mareesburg deposit, and this month it announced plans to open a trial mine at Spitzkop.
At 11.04am on the JSE, Eastplats was trading at R21,25, with almost 39Â 000 shares having changed hands. — I-Net Bridge