China Minmetals unit buys rare earth stocks

BEIJING, Sept 01 (Reuters): The rare earths arm of state-owned China Minmetals Corp on Sunday bought metal and rare earth inventories formerly held by the defunct Fanya Metal Exchange as the sole bidder in online auctions, paying 780.4 million yuan ($110 million).

China Minmetals Rare Earth Co bought three lots of antimony, terbium oxide and dysprosium oxide for starting prices set by the Kunming Intermediate People's Court, according to the e-commerce site that hosted the auction. The prices paid are below current market value.

The Fanya exchange was launched in 2011 in Kunming, in southwest China's Yunnan province, with the aim of raising the prices of minor metals like bismuth by building up stockpiles using money borrowed from thousands of individual investors.

But the exchange froze transactions and members' accounts in 2015 after experiencing "liquidity" problems and was later taken over by government investigators.