Gold mining company Sibanye has revised its organisational structures in anticipation of imminent entry into platinum mining.
As it becomes a multicommodity business, Sibanye, headed by CEO Neal Froneman, will be restructured into separate, commodity- specific divisions focused on operational delivery.
Revised leadership structures have been set up to integrate platinum assets into the platinum division, which will be headed by Jean Nel as CEO.
Awaited is the government transfer of the ownership of the Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) and Aquarius Platinum operations to Sibanye. Nel is the former CEO of Aquarius.
The Department of Mineral Resources conducts the transfer of ownership process under Section 11 of the Minerals and Petroleum Resources Development Act, which governs the sale of the mining right and the prospecting right to Sibanye.
To be transferred to Sibanye are Amplats’ Bathopele, Siphumelele/Khomanani and Thembelani/Khuseleka mining operations, two concentrating plants, an on-site chrome recovery plant, the Western Limb Tailings Retreatment Plant, surface infrastructure plus assets and liabilities on a going-concern basis, including normalised levels of working capital.
Also to be transferred to Sibanye is Aquarius’s Kroondal platinum mine, which presents potential synergistic benefits with the Rustenburg Platinum Mines.
In a recent release, Sibanye outlined how the reorganisation would ensure minimal disruption to operating activities and place experienced operations management closer to the mining face.
Sibanye said the executive management structure of the platinum division would mimic that of its gold and uranium division, headed by CEO Wayne Robinson.
Adam Mutshinya would continue in his role as senior VP human capital of the gold and uranium division and former corporate finance VP Pieter Henning would be appointed the division’s senior finance VP, while former Driefontein Underground VP William Osae had been promoted to senior technical services VP.
In platinum, Bheki Khumalo had been appointed senior VP human capital and Peter Turner senior VP technical services, which followed JustinFroneman’s appointment last year as senior VP finance and Shadwick Bessit’s appointment as senior VP mining.
As executive VP energy and coal, John Wallington had been appointed to drive Sibanye’s energy strategy.
Strategy would continue to be driven by a group executive committee, which included CFO Charl Keyter, commercial services executive Dawie Mostert, corporate affairs executive Hartley Dikgale, business development executive Richard Stewart and organi- sational effectiveness executive Robert van Niekerk.
The group executive would be complemented by members of the CEO’s office, which would house key strategic functions including communications, headed by Thabisile Phumo, protection services headed by NashLutchman, investor rela- tions headed by James Wellsted and safety, health and environment, which was cur- rently vacant but which would be filled in due course.
Sibanye has insisted that its entry into platinum is not a commodity diversification strategy, but a value creation strategy for all stakeholders and not just shareholders.
The company is facilitating affordable home ownership for all its employees under existing living-out allowances.
Near-mine communities will be part of an initiative to re-establish the West Rand as an agricultural hub. Together with Gold Fields, Sibanye has created 640 jobs through local economic development programmes and is planning to create another 1 000 by the end of 2018.
The company has 305 bursars, 6 321 learnerships, 6 673 local community representatives undergoing adult education and another 6 000 being provided with portable skills.
It has spent R130-million on uplifting labour-sending areas, built two clinics that service West Rand communities and has 17 school projects on its books.
For investors, it recently declared a final dividend of 90c a share, taking the full divi- dend for the year to 100c a share and return- ing another R916-million to shareholders, coming close to meeting its R1-billion-a-year target in a poor operating year.
Since listing three years ago, it has achieved a 275% return on investment amounting to roughly R38-billion of value created. That is a 55% yearly return when expressed in compound annual growth rate terms.