Shaft Sinkers lists in London

London - South African-based Shaft Sinkers Holdings, which builds infrastructure for underground mines, listed in London on Thursday so it can expand in India and the region surrounding Russia.

Its shares started trading at 130 pence, up 4.8% from the placing price of 124 pence, giving it a market value of £61.75m.

The group is the top builder of vertical shafts in South Africa, home to some of the deepest mines in the world. It sunk the deepest ever shaft there at 3.1km.

"The listing will allow us to build on our strengths and expand into new industries and geographies requiring our expertise, particularly the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) and India," said CEO Alon Davidov.

Shaft Sinkers, originally part of miner Anglo American [JSE:AGL], is controlled by private mining group International Mineral Resources, according to its website.

A placing of 24.7 million new shares raised £30.6m, most of which will be used to buy out some minority stakes, but it did not specify which ones.