Patrice Motsepe’s mining giant set to rock

African Rainbow Minerals (ARM) expects a notable jump in earnings for the first half of its 2026 financial year.

 The mining giant, chaired by billionaire businessman Patrice Motsepe, is known for its diversified portfolio, mining and beneficiating iron, manganese, chrome, platinum group metals (PGMs), nickel and coal.

On Tuesday, 24 February 2026, ARM released a trading statement for the six months through December 2025, which marks the first half of its 2026 financial year.

This statement revealed that ARM expects its headline earnings per share to increase by between 5% and 15%, with headline earnings expected to be between R1.60 billion and R1.75 billion.

The company further expects its basic earnings per share to increase by between 65% and 75%, with basic earnings expected to fall between R2.30 billion and R2.44 billion.

ARM explained that it benefited immensely from higher US dollar PGM basket prices over the six-month period, particularly at its Two Rivers and Modikwa Mines in Limpopo.

In addition, the miner explained that its basic earnings received a boost from a profit recognised on the disposal of Sakura, a manganese alloy smelter based in Malaysia.

On top of that, the company recognised a gain on the remeasurement of its pre-existing 50% interest in Nkomati Mine, which arose as a result of the acquisition of a 50% interest in Norilsk Nickel Africa.

These strong expected results follow ARM’s recent executive switch-up, which saw Motsepe moving to a non-executive chairman role, a change from his previous position as executive chairman.

Motsepe’s history with mining dates back to 1994, when he founded Future Mining, a highly successful contract mining company.

A few years later, in 1997, he formed ARMgold, which, under Motsepe’s leadership, merged with Avmin and Harmony Gold in 2003.

Following this merger, Avmin changed its name to ARM, and Motsepe became the company’s executive chairman.

ARM’s interim results for the first half of its 2026 financial year will be published on 6 March 2026.