Andre Janse van Vuuren and Kevin Crowley
SIBANYE Gold may still bid for the South African platinum mines that Anglo American wants to dispose of even as the world’s largest producer of the metal said a separate listing of the assets was more probable.
While Anglo American Platinum (Angloplat) favoured a sale of the four mines, a listing was also a possibility should bids not meet its valuation of the operations, the producer said last year.
Anglo American, which holds a 77 percent stake in Angloplat, as the unit is known, said in April an initial public offering (IPO) was more probable even as the company had yet to make a final decision.
Sibanye was assessing the mines’ value based on information supplied by Angloplat after it expressed interest in buying the assets, spokesman James Wellsted said.
“We are aware that an IPO is a possibility, and that may be a function of maybe realising better value,” Wellsted said. “We’ll continue in the process in good faith and may make a bid that we think is fair.”
Angloplat would pursue the best of the two divestment options and would make a decision on the exit mechanism by the end of next month, Mpumi Sithole, a spokeswoman for the producer, said.
While Sibanye was looking for mines valued by their owners at about R5 billion to R10bn, it did not plan to pay as much, chief executive Neal Froneman said last year. – Bloomberg