Lonmin, the world’s third-largest platinum miner, and Sibanye Gold were "just weeks away" from agreeing a transaction tying their assets together. Two sources close to the matter said talks had been under way for some time when Sibanye suddenly unveiled a $2.2bn cash bid for US-based Stillwater Mining. One of the sources said: "It was so, so close. It was just weeks away from something being finalised." Lonmin CEO Ben Magara said: "We never comment on market speculation." Sibanye spokesman James Wellsted said Sibanye had spoken to nearly all platinum companies in its quest to grow its platinum business, which now included the whole of Aquarius Platinum and the neighbouring Rustenburg mines owned by Anglo American Platinum. "We said from the start we were looking at all opportunities in the PGM [platinum-group metals] space. Given our footprint on the Western Limb we were obviously considering opportunities in that area and could have included any of those operations," he said. The p...
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