Royal Bafokeng Holdings accepted an unsolicited offer this month from Northam Platinum for up to a third of Royal Bafokeng Platinum (RBPlat) in a R17-billion transaction. RBPlat’s mines – one of which, Styldrift, is pictured here – are on the western limb of the Bushveld Complex and their assets have been described by Northam as “young, shallow and well capitalised”. The Northam deal led rival Implats, which had been seeking to acquire 100% of the issued ordinary shares of RBPlat, to withdraw a cautionary announcement of an impending transaction.