China Gold puts copper miner stake up for sale for one yuan

A unit of state-owned China National Gold Group on Tuesday put its 63% stake in an indebted copper miner up for sale on a Beijing government-run M&A platform for a token 1 yuan ($0.14).

China Gold Group Resources Co is selling its stake in Inner Mongolia-based West Ujimqin Qi Daolun Daba Copper Mine Development Co on the China Beijing Equity Exchange, a filing to the bourse showed.

The copper miner had total liabilities of almost 255 million yuan ($36.6 million) as of Nov. 30, the filing showed.

China has been encouraging state-owned enterprises to improve their efficiency by offloading “zombie” companies that have performed poorly and suffered long-term financial losses.

The filing did not specify whether the copper miner was currently producing or the scale of its resources.

Chinese news website Jiemian.com said the loss-making firm had almost 18 million tonnes of copper ore reserves.

A China Gold spokeswoman said the company had nothing else to add beyond what it said in the filing.

($1 = 6.9670 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(By Tom Daly and Beijing Newsroom; Editing by Jason Neely)