Strike Pushes Northam Platinum into a full-year loss

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South Africa's Northam Platinum 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 136.5 cents a year earlier.

Headline EPS is the key measure of profitability in South Africa and 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 Nov. 3 to Jan. 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, Impala Platinum and Lonmin.

"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.