Northam Platinum swings to loss after strike

Johannesburg - Northam Platinum [JSE:NHM] said on Thursday it fell into a loss because of a protracted strike at its key operations.

The mid-tier platinum producer said headline losses per share for the year to the end of June were 2.2 cents, compared with earnings of 136.5c a year earlier.

Headline EPS is strips out certain one-off and non-trading items.

Over 7 000 members of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) downed tools at its Zondereinde mine from November 3 to January 21, demanding higher wages.

The strike ended just before a five-month strike by NUM's arch rival, the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu), at Anglo American Platinum [JSE:AMS], Impala Platinum [JSE:IMP] and Lonmin [JSE:LON].

"The strike at Zondereinde could be regarded as a harbinger of what was to follow in the rest of the industry. At the operations we need to be alive to the potential for inter-union conflict," the company said in a statement, referring to the NUM/Amcu rivalry.