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- Sibanye has been snapping up assets in Europe and the US, but maintains it is not 'anti-Africa'.
- CEO Neal Froneman said Sibanye is not yet done with its acquisition trail.
- Green metals are expected to deliver value for the company and increase revenue diversification outside of SA.
Following a flurry of deals in green metals in the past few months, Sibanye Stillwater CEO Neal Froneman says the company's recent manoeuvers are not impulse decisions and there is still space for more deals in the pipeline.
On Tuesday, the diversified miner announced that it had signed a definitive $1 billion (~R14.9 billion) agreement for the purchase of a nickel and a copper mine in Brazil, taking the number of new acquisitions in the growing green metals space to four since the beginning of the year.
"These are not impulse decisions, we have been working implementing our strategy for the last two years. It is a prudent entry, and it could have been nice if we had made it a few years back," said Froneman.
The executive who has led the company over its long history of takeovers and mergers since its inception in 2013 is of the view that there is still a lot of upside in green metal, a commodity that is largely driven by a demand in the production of electric vehicles.
Sibanye's latest addition to its growing assets base would be Santa Rita, one of the largest nickel-cobalt sulphide open pit mines in the world, located in the State of Bahia, Brazil, as well as the Serrote copper mine in the State of Alagoas. The assets were held by affiliates of funds advised by Appian Capital Advisory.
Investment in green metals has been a key part of Sibanye's growth strategy, and the company this year acquired lithium assets in Europe and the US, as well as a nickel processing facility in France. Green metals are expected to deliver "significant future value for the company" and increase its revenue diversification outside of South Africa.
"I think there is more to come ... but I can't lay it out in detail. We continue to look at opportunities. We are very disciplined in what we do, there could be something smaller in the pipeline in the near term. We will regroup, integrate these transactions."
"If there was anything significant still to come, we have plenty of capacity to integrate," he said.
The Santa Rita and Serrote assets have been described by the company as low-cost and low-carbon-intensity operations.
According to Froneman, there was not doubt that there is strong demand for both PGMs and battery metals and that Sibanye's entry into green metals is not an indication that the company has "lost confidence in PGMs". But the demand for fuel-cell vehicles is seen as increasing even more post 2030, and nickel is a key component in lithium-ion batteries used by electric vehicle manufacturers such as Tesla.
Tesla's founder, Elon Musk, previously urged companies to produce more of nickel as the demand for the metal continues to outstrip supply. However, Froneman says he rates lithium higher in the company green metals strategy as it has the most upside, with nickel coming a close second.
Cobalt is seen as reasonably risky because of its future demand.
While Sibanye has been snapping up assets in the US and Europe, Froneman said the company was "not anti-Africa", but focus at this stage was in lower risk jurisdictions.
