Sibanye looking for another platinum asset in SA, says Neal Froneman
A local platinum acquisition focused on smelting and refining is what Sibanye Gold wants, but first it must fund its Stillwater deal, says CE Neal Froneman
Sibanye Gold is hunting for another local platinum asset with a focus on smelting and refining, but a deal is unlikely this year as its seeks to fund its acquisition of US producer Stillwater. "We still have a step to do with our platinum strategy," Sibanye CE Neal Froneman said on the sidelines of the mining indaba on Monday. "Our South African asset base still needs to have a mine to market basis. We need to add downstream processing, so that’s smelting, refining. We want to know who our end-users are and develop the market," he said. But Froneman said the rights issue of up to $1.3bn, which the company was planning for its $2.2bn Stillwater acquisition, needed to be completed first. So any new deal was unlikely in 2017. "We think it’s prudent to target the $1.3bn. It gives us a prudent balance sheet," said Froneman. Sibanye has branched aggressively from gold into platinum, acquiring Anglo American Platinum’s labour-intensive Rustenburg operations as the Anglo unit pivots to mech...
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