VANCOUVER/LUSAKA (Reuters) – First Quantum Minerals said on Tuesday that Zambia’s tax agency had slapped it with 76.5 billion Zambian kwacha ($8.04 billion) bill for unpaid import duties, a potentially huge blow for the Canadian miner that earns most its profit in the southern African country.
First Quantum, which owns two copper mines in Zambia and has a market value of $11 billion, denied it owed the funds.
The tax assessment would be a “new significant risk for the company”, Jefferies analyst Christopher LaFemina said in a client note, as almost half of First Quantum’s estimated value and around 80 percent of its estimated pre-tax earnings in 2018, come from its Zambian copper assets.
First Quantum’s stock dropped 12.4 percent to C$18 on the Toronto Stock Exchange before it was halted. The massive tax assessment comes at a time when host governments, including Indonesia, Tanzania and Democratic Republic of Congo, are demanding a bigger slice of revenue from miners amid rising commodity prices.
“The company unequivocally refutes this assessment which does not appear to have any discernable basis of calculation …” First Quantum said in a statement.
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