Bloomberg reported that the world’s second biggest producer of platinum, Impala Platinum Ltd., said that its first half profit decrease to as much as 79% due to rising costs and a $68M writedown.

As quoted in the market news

Earnings per share excluding one-time items were probably 1.20 rand to 1.38 rand in the six months through December compared with 5.73 rand a year earlier, the Johannesburg-based company said in a statement today. The median estimate of three analysts in Bloomberg survey was for 1.57 rand. Impala is recording a writedown of 603 million rand ($68 million).

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