On 2 April 2004, we announced that the company had commenced a restructuring process following the current weakness of the gold price in R/kg terms. Some of our older shafts, which had come to the end of their economic lives, were jointly evaluated and a process to down-scale production at the shafts was initiated.
The company met with the respective unions and associations involved on numerous occasions, and an agreement was concluded on Friday, 16 July 2004. The main objective of the agreement is to avoid or minimise compulsory retrenchment as a result of the restructuring process.
The mark-to-market of these contracts was a negative R300 million (US$48 million) at 30 June 2004. These values were based upon an exchange rate of US$1/R6.2600 and prevailing market interest rates at the time. Independent risk and treasury management experts provided these valuations.