Sibanye-Stillwater’s new CEO Richard Stewart has officially taken the reins of the mining major, opening a new chapter in the group’s unfolding growth story, begun under erstwhile boss Neal Froneman.
Stewart takes over at the platinum group metal (PGM) giant whose market value is on the ascendancy after a rally of more than 200% in the share price since the beginning of the year as PGM came back in favour and the gold price continued its rally.
Stewart faces an array of challenges, from illegal mining and cable theft to the rising cost of power and the world’s evolving critical mineral policy landscape.
Froneman was the architect behind Sibanye’s 12-year transformation from a local gold miner into an international precious metal player.
He was at the helm when the company was founded in 2013 through the unbundling of Gold Fields’ SA mines and steered the group into the PGM sector through its purchase of Stillwater Mining Company in the US in 2017.
In the last eight years of his tenure, Froneman helped grow the miner into a PGM powerhouse, now valued at R140bn on the JSE after returning more than R46bn to shareholders through dividends and share buybacks between 2013 and June 2024, according to its latest annual results.
Froneman’s retirement comes at a time when the group’s investment in PGMs is finally paying off. After three years of stubbornly low prices, suppressed by fears around electric vehicles (EVs) negating catalytic converters, platinum has skyrocketed to 12-year highs in recent months on suppressed supply, safe-haven demand and surprisingly high hybrid EV sales.
The US PGM operations have also turned out to be particularly instrumental in Sibanye’s popularity with investors during US President Donald Trump’s second term.
The strategic significance of the group’s Stillwater and East Boulder operations in Montana, the only source of primary PGM supply in the US, has served as a buffer against deteriorating US-SA relations and erratic US foreign policy, buoying confidence in the group as geopolitical noise weighs on the broader mining sector.
In July, however, Sibanye’s US outlook changed when Trump decided to phase out production credits provided to local PGM miners as part of a broader shift to cut back on state-funded environmental mandates.
With US state support set to end in eight years, Stewart will be forced to weigh the shelter these US mines provide from the country’s increasingly protectionist foreign policy stance against the potential for losses without state aid.
Meanwhile, at home, the company is fighting a losing battle against illegal mining as record gold prices make smuggling and theft more attractive.
Sibanye reported its highest number of illegal mining incidents in more than a decade last year, while copper cable theft at its PGM operations cost the group R53.4m in direct financial losses last year and R113m in 2023.
Added to this are water and electricity woes, with electricity tariff increases resulting in power as a growing component of operating costs. Sibanye told Business Day in November that the share had risen from about 9% in 2007 to 23% today.
Regular disruptions to the water supply have also forced the group to spend hundreds of millions of rand to reduce its dependence on municipal supply in recent years.
Sibanye’s SA PGM operations are located in the water-scarce western limb of the Bushveld Complex, making them particularly vulnerable to municipal supply risks.
In a statement on Wednesday, Stewart thanked Neal for his “visionary leadership over the past 13 years” and welcomed Mduduzi Bhulose as the firm’s new executive vice-president of business development.
Bhulose has 21 years of experience in investment and mining, having worked for Anglo American, Rand Merchant Bank and, most recently, the Public Investment Corporation, where he served as head of listed equities.
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