Billionaire Patrice Motsepe’s mining giant doubles profit

African Rainbow Minerals (ARM) doubled its interim profit as the price of platinum and other precious metals skyrocketed over the past six months.

ARM, chaired by billionaire businessman Patrice Motsepe, released its results for the six months through December 2025 on Friday, 6 March.

Marking the first half of its 2026 financial year, these results showed a 31.63% increase in revenue to R8.4 billion.

The miner’s profit for the period shot up by 110% to reach R3.04 billion, while its basic earnings increased by 72% to 1,220 cents per share.

These strong results were largely driven by higher metal prices over the six-month period, particularly the prices of all three major PGM markets – platinum, palladium, and rhodium.

In rand terms, platinum prices were up by 53%, palladium up by 29%, and rhodium up by 50%. ARM also benefited from a 78% increase in cobalt prices.

The miner explained that, aside from higher metal prices, its earnings also saw a boost from a profit recognised on its disposal of Sakura, a manganese alloy smelter based in Malaysia.

In addition, 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.

However, some of these benefits were offset as the miner’s unit costs came under pressure from lower production volumes and above-inflation cost increases across ARM’s operations.

ARM reported sales of R7.86 billion for the six-month period, a 38% increase from the prior year, while its cost of sales rose by 10% to R5.24 billion.

On the back of these results, ARM declared an interim dividend of R5 per share, up from R4.50 the previous year.