Shares in Lonmin, the London-listed platinum miner, made their largest jump in 12 weeks today after it signed a deal to start wage talks with three of the unions at its Marikana mine.
The agreement does not include the militant Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union but it has been asked to join in the wage talks later.
The deal is meant to see the miners return to work at Marikana, which has been shut down for more than three weeks, on Monday morning.
Lonmin has also agreed to pay them five days’ wages to compensate for the week of funerals declared by the South African government after 44 people were killed at the mine.
Less than 5% of the workforce has been showing up for work in recent days. Wage talks are due to be completed within 30 days with any deal effective from 1 October.
Lonmin shares today gained 30.5p to 559.5p.
