Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) shares rose to the highest close in more than a year yesterday, as some investors took the view that it was better placed than rivals to weather an eight-week strike.
Amplats closed 5.3 percent up at R475.79, the highest since February 11 last year. The volume of shares traded was more than double the daily average for the past 90 days.
Amplats has risen 17 percent since the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) said on January 20 that it would strike at Amplats, Impala Platinum and Lonmin. Impala has lost 1.6 percent and Lonmin is down 6.4 percent.
Talks to end the strike in support of Amcu’s demand for entry-level pay to be more than doubled are deadlocked. The companies rejected a compromise by Amcu that gave employers three years to meet the demand in stages, offering instead to raise wages by as much as 9 percent a year.
Amplats was the best positioned to keep supplying its customers for the longest, Simon Hudson-Peacock at Momentum Asset Management said yesterday. – Bloomberg