Brazil miner Vale loses $18 bn in market cap

Brazilian mining giant Vale lost more than $18 billion of its value Monday in a dramatic share plunge on the Sao Paulo stock exchange as investors reacted to the collapse of one of its dams that killed scores and left hundreds missing. The 24.5 per cent drop followed an eight percent dive on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday, the day the disaster occurred. The Brazilian bourse was closed that day for a public holiday.

US-listed shares in Vale continued to fall Monday. They were 17.5pc lower just before close of trading. Vale, the world’s biggest iron ore miner, has seen its reputation severely tarnished by the deadly accident -- the second involving a company-owned mine in the southeastern Brazilian state of Minas Gerais in just over three years. The company announced it was suspending dividend payments to shareholders and performance-related bonuses to executives.

Brazilian authorities separately have frozen a total of 11 billion reais -- around $3 billion -- in Vale assets in anticipation of compensation it will likely have to fork out. A tsunami of mineral-laced mud broke through a dam at an iron-ore mine owned by Vale near the town of Brumadinho on January 25. The official toll from the disaster so far stands at 60 dead and 292 missing. Flavio Godinho, a lieutenant colonel in the Minas Gerais civil defense who is organizing the search and rescue effort, said while hopes were dwindling, “there is still a chance of finding survivors.”