A deal signed in platinum

It has been a stretched-out and difficult process, but Sibanye-Stillwater has successfully taken over Lonmin. Ben Magara, the last CEO of Lonmin, spoke to David McKay about the deal.

- David McKay

corporate deaths are rarely spectacular. Rather, the lawyers move in and with a swish of the pen life moves on. So it was with Lonmin this month: 20 years after its creation as a focused mining company the office chairs were stacked, and someone turned the lights off.

It had taken more than a year to conclude its all-share merger with Sibanye-Stillwater – more than might really be necessary, but as ever with Lonmin, events rarely run smoothly.

CEO Ben Magara’s role in the Lonmin story began six years ago to the month, just under a year after the Marikana atrocity in which 34 protesting miners were shot dead by security forces. Ten miners had been killed in the week prior, largely a function of inter-union rivalry.

Commenting in an interview with finweek at Melrose Arch, in the same hotel room where he met Neal Froneman, Sibanye-Stillwater’s CEO, Magara laments the way the Marikana event became a story of political collusion.

Current President Cyril Ramaphosa, then non-executive director of Lonmin, asked for “concomitant action” against protest action by members of the Association of Mineworkers & Construction Union (Amcu) that he interpreted as “dastardly” and “criminal”.