Harmony Gold Mining Co. chief executive Bernard Swanepoel, whose $3.8 billion hostile bid for Gold Fields Ltd. led to a collapse in his stock, said he will sell his stake in the rival and fire almost 12,000 workers at his own company as losses mount.
“We won’t own or continue to own those shares simply to irritate Gold Fields management,” Swanepoel, 44, who holds an 11.8 percent stake in Gold Fields, said Thursday in an interview from Johannesburg, South Africa. “That’s just not our style.”
Since first bidding Oct. 18 for Gold Fields, the world’s No. 4 gold producer, Harmony has announced plans to fire 4,900 workers in Free State, South Africa’s second-largest gold mining district.
Swanepoel said a labor-court ruling delaying the firings caused the company to increase an earlier job-cuts estimate to 11,780 people, or a quarter of its workforce of 45,000.
Harmony’s stock has lost 42 percent since October as shareholders balked at Swanepoel’s takeover plan.
Its shares lost 80 cents, or 1.8 percent, to 43 rand ($6.73) in Johannesburg on Thursday. Gold Fields dropped 3.10 rand, or 4.6 percent, to 63.81 rand ($10).
The offer for Gold Fields, whose shares trade 16 percent above Harmony’s bid, lapses today. Swanepoel, who joined Harmony 10 years ago, sought to buy Gold Fields to cut costs as the rand’s doubling against the dollar since 2001 prompted five straight quarterly losses.
Producers of gold, South Africa’s biggest export, pay costs in rand and get paid in dollars.
