RUSSIA’S Vi Holding has quit its involvement in Zimbabwe’s Great Dyke Investments platinum company.

The Russian company has ceded its 50% stake in the company to Zimbabwe’s Kuvimba Mining House, according to an email from Great Dyke, which didn’t give a reason for the change in shareholding. Igor Higer, who had served as Great Dyke chairman and is a represenative of Vi, said his company has exited the arrangement.

Great Dyke owns the Darwendale platinum deposit and has said it planned to build a $3 billion mine to extract the metal, which would make it Zimbabwe’s biggest platinum project.

But last week Bloomberg reported that the project was struggling to get off the ground for the past two years as the Russian holding was scaring off potential financiers for the $3 billion mine. – Bloomberg