Sibanye-Stillwater, a multinational precious metal mining group led by South African businessman Neal Froneman, has expressed an interest in acquiring Mopani Copper Mines, a Zambian registered company wholly owned by ZCCM Investment Holdings, the successor company to ZCCM Ltd.
The interest in the Zambian mining company was expressed by Froneman, Sibanye-Stillwater’s CEO, after the mine and smelter complex revealed that it is looking for new investors following Glencore’s January 2017 sale of the asset to state mining investment company ZCCM Investment Holdings.
According to Froneman, the South African mining group registered an interest in Mopani Copper Mines about a year ago and continues to be interested.
A deal between ZCCM and Sibanye-Stillwater will return Mopani Copper Mines to foreign ownership after it was sold to ZCCM Investment Holdings in 2017 by Glencore, an Anglo-Swiss multinational commodity trading and mining company headquartered in Baar, Switzerland.
The more than 90-year-old Mopani copper mine has the capacity to produce 225,000 tonnes of copper per year, or nearly three times its projected output for 2022, but it requires at least $300 million in investment to finance a difficult underground expansion.
Sibanye-Stillwater may be the mining company’s ideal buyer, as it has been making a strategic move into battery metals such as lithium and nickel through a series of acquisitions.
In recent years, the mining group has become the majority owner of Keliber, a Finnish mining and battery chemical company, in line with its strategic expansion plans and transition into green metals. It now owns 85 percent of the Finnish battery maker.
Investor reactions to the group’s planned diversification into the low-carbon economy has seen its shares rise more than six percent this week on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, from R42.01 ($2.33) to R44.73 ($2.485), while its market cap has surpassed R127 billion ($7 billion).
Froneman’s 0.074-percent stake in Sibanye-Stillwater is now worth more than R94 million ($5.2 million) at current prices.
