China Minmetals Rare Earth Group bought all antimony stocks of the collapsed Fanya Metal Exchange (FME) in an auction carried out by China's Yunnan local government on 31 August.
The delivery price for the auctioned antimony metal, which is claimed to total 18,661t, was bought at 546mn yuan ($76mn), equivalent to Yn29,259/t without value-added tax (VAT). The intermediate court of Kunming rejected disclosing how much VAT the bidder should pay for the antimony auction.
China Minmetals was the sole participant in the auction process. China Minmetals wholly owns Hunan Hsikwangshan Twinkling Star, the world's largest antimony producer, with antimony trioxide output of around 31,000 t/yr.
Prices for the 99.65pc metal have dipped to a Yn35,000-36,000/t range, the lowest since April 2016, caused by the downside sentiment generated by the FME auction, as well as continued flat consumer demand.
FME's antimony stocks bought by China Minmetals account for around 20pc of Chinese annual output. They are unlikely to enter the market in the short term because of current low prices and low-key buying interest. Most producers have opted to keep prices stable and adopt a watch-and-see attitude to the market before clear direction emerges.
More than 220,000 investors with total investment estimated at Yn43bn bought into FMEs Ri Jin Bao investment fund. These investors have been unable to redeem their funds since April 2015. Chinese police in June 2016 arrested FME owner Shan Jiuliang who was later sentenced by the courts to 18 years in prison for his role in the exchange's collapse.
The Yunnan superior court on 26 July upheld an earlier verdict by its subordinate Kunming court, which in March handed out fines of Yn1bn to FME and Yn500mn, Yn50mn and Yn5mn to four related companies for illegal fund raising and embezzlement.
The final court decision signified all stocks held in FME will be auctioned. FME's reported stocks of its main listed products included 3,600t of indium, 19,228t of bismuth, 26,951t of tungsten ammonium paratungstate (APT) and 191t of gallium. The 26,951t of APT stocks are going to be auctioned on 16 September.
