Johannesburg - Black-owned Royal Bafokeng Platinum (RBPlat) has made a full recovery from its myriad woes last year after reporting that it expected headline earnings for the half year to June to jump by between 217.5 percent and 234.1 percent.
RBPlat – which is expected to be unscathed by the wage talks in the platinum industry that started yesterday thanks to a long-term wage agreement with the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) – shares lost 0.18 percent to R49.11 on the JSE on the release of its trading statement.
The company yesterday announced that its headline earnings for the six months to June were expected to be between 71c and 81c compared with the same period last year, from a loss a share and headline loss a share of 60.4c for the six months ended on June 30 last year.
RBPlat made losses last June after settling a tax dispute with the SA Revenue Service (Sars) relating to the tax assessments for the 2008, 2009 and 2010 tax years.
In addition, Eskom’s load shedding contributed to reduced concentrator availability, and safety-related stoppages also contributed to the losses.
The company also said during the time that cost increases primarily attributable to the “front-end loaded” nature of wage increases in terms of the five-year wage agreement combined with above inflationary utility cost increases.
Sibonginkosi Nyanga, an analyst at Momentum SP Reid Securities said the first half 2015 earnings were impacted by a number of once-offs that included a current and deferred tax charge related to the settlement of an R110 million tax dispute with Sars and safety stoppages.
Tax dispute
“The earnings were also lower because of reduced concentrator plant availability and output due to recurrent stoppages related to Eskom’s load shedding and unscheduled maintenance and repairs. It also experienced more unscheduled and higher costs caused by the front-end loaded nature of the long-term wage deal with NUM that was above inflation,” said Nyanga.
“The increase in earnings is also partly due to the fact that first-half earnings are coming from a low base. We want to see if the proportion of lower grade UG2 (Upper Group 2) reef mining and higher Merensky reef production has changed or not. RBPlat is expected to announce its results on August 1.”
The buoyant RBPlat statement comes a day after Anglo American Platinum (Amplats), announced that it expected earnings to fall by between 50 percent and 70 percent in the half-year to June, signalling a blow to the wage demand of R12 500 a month that has been made by the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu).
Amplats said headline earnings would fall 50 percent and 70 percent to between R745m and R1.24 billion.
Amcu has demanded a minimum of R12 500 for entry-level employees in category 4 to 9 and a 15 percent increase for other employees.
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