Long March Capital mulls buying platinum assets in South Africa

China's Long March Capital, a partner of Citic Group, is considering buying South African platinum assets after their value was depressed by strikes.

The company was reviewing a decision to hold off on buying such assets because of the labour issues, managing partner Clement Kwong said.

Long March last year teamed up with Citic unit Baiyin Non-Ferrous Metal and China-Africa Development Fund to complete their buyout of Perth-based Gold One International and indirectly bought a stake in South African-based Sibanye Gold.

"If the industry survives and makes a profit, then that would be a good signal to look at investing," said Kwong, who co-founded Long March in 2008. "This last round has repriced these assets down so I think it would be as cheap as it gets."

Anglo American Platinum, Impala Platinum and Lonmin say they have lost 4.4 billion rand (HK$3.08 billion) in revenue because of a four-week strike by about 70,000 workers.

The companies, which together produce about 75 per cent of the world's platinum, suffered losses from weeks of walkouts in 2012 and 34 protesting miners were killed by police at a Lonmin mine in August that year.