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Impala Platinum profit surges on higher precious metal prices; offsets help ease Zimbabwe cash lock-up
By Agencies
Impala Platinum IMP -1.46%decrease; down pointing triangle reported surging earnings for its fiscal year, buoyed by higher precious-metal prices and the reversal of prior write-downs at its Rustenburg operations in South Africa.
The South African platinum-mining company, also known as Implats, said Thursday that net profit for the year ended June 30 came to 31.04 billion South African rand ($1.93 billion), up sharply from the 761 million-rand profit it posted for the prior year.
The company had said last month that its fiscal 2026 earnings would get a boost from higher metals prices.
Implats said its results benefited from a total impairment reversal of 11.1 billion rand, as higher prices led it to revise the expected future operating results of its Rustenburg operation.
Full-year revenue jumped to 135.15 billion rand from 85.46 billion rand.
The company’s board declared a final dividend of 4.90 rand a share and an additional ordinary dividend of 9.55 rand a share, compared with a final dividend of 1.65 rand for fiscal 2025.
Implats said all three major platinum-group-metal markets are likely to record supply deficits in 2026.
The World Platinum Investment Council, an industry group, forecast in May that the platinum market would experience a fourth consecutive year of deficits in 2026, with demand outstripping supply.
The company said it had made progress in resolving the lock-up of its cash in Zimbabwe, where the government owes platinum miners millions of dollars in unpaid export proceeds.
Zimbabwe, where Impala’s subsidiary Zimplats operates, requires all exporters to convert 30% of their proceeds into local currency via government channels, but the government is frequently behind in paying out the local currency to exporters.
Impala CFO Meroonisha Kerber told analysts during a results call that the “situation had improved significantly since March”.
“We reached an agreement to allow us basically to get 50% of our surrender proceeds in cash, and the other 50% will be utilised for set-offs,” Kerber said.
“Since that agreement’s been put in place, they have honoured the terms of that and we have been able to offset between taxes, royalties, and customs duties about $99 million and we’ve had access to $150 million of local currency,” she added.
The miner, which reversed the 11.1 billion rand impairment of its Rustenburg assets due to an improved PGM price outlook, said it was studying the potential of some of its greenfield assets, including Zimplats Portal 10 and Styldrift 2, to help sustain future production.