Just how stretched Lonmin’s financials are was exposed on Monday when it released results delayed since November. In August, Lonmin unveiled plans to restructure its business, bringing in buyers for some of its assets, partners for others and selling part of its smelting and refining capacity. This move — endorsed by the company’s lenders, which waivered conditions in their debt covenants — forced Sibanye-Stillwater’s hand in making an all-share takeover bid for the platinum miner. Sibanye had wanted to wait a while longer, letting Lonmin close old shafts and cut jobs, but it did not want the company broken up, the asset base dispersed and the crown jewels, the smelting and refining business, invaded by third parties. Now that Sibanye has made its intentions clear, the lenders have extended their waiver until February 2019, the date by which the takeover bid must be concluded. But it has come at the cost of freezing loans and cancelling debt structures. While Lonmin CE Ben Magara pu...
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