Dallas, Texas 10/11/2013 (Financialstrend) – Harmony Gold Mining Co. (ADR) (NYSE:HMY) filed three mandatory filing with SEC in the month of September. When the impart of all these three notifications are taken together, the uncertainty surrounding the South African gold mining industry in general and Harmony’s operations in particular become apparent.
On September 6, the gold mining company announced that its mining operations were severely impacted due to a strike call enforced by National Union of Mineworkers. The negotiations went back and forth between mine management and NUM representatives. On September 9, the company filed a follow up update with SEC which indicating the normalization of its operations after the management and NUM arrived at a temporary truce. The notification underlined the possible negative impact the series of labour related issues (which have been cropping up in regular intervals since beginning of 2013) will have on the overall performance of the company. CEO of Harmony had gone on record to state that, “The strike action will have an impact on Harmony’s performance for the quarter, and on employees’ earnings, and is most regrettable. Nonetheless, we are pleased to have reached a resolution.”
In a third SEC filing dated September 3, the company announced that a consortium of its key institutional investors have increased their stock holdings in HMY to 10.1% of the total 432 million issued shares. The consortium is represented by Allan Gray Proprietary Limited.
The impart of the three filings in unison helps readers understand the uncertainly which is enveloping the gold miners in South Africa. The international prices of the precious metals have dipped to under $1200 per ounce in the last 8 months. Due to the low pricing of gold in the international markets, gold mining companies have struggled to maintain a healthy margin which in turn has led the stock markets and retail investors to disinvest from the gold mining company stock in unison.
