{"id":867240,"date":"2026-07-23T13:50:04","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T11:50:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=867240"},"modified":"2026-07-23T13:50:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T11:50:07","slug":"billionaire-patrice-motsepes-golden-child-takes-a-beating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/867240\/billionaire-patrice-motsepes-golden-child-takes-a-beating\/","title":{"rendered":"Billionaire Patrice Motsepe&#8217;s golden child takes a beating"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Shares in African Rainbow Minerals, founded and backed by billionaire Patrice Motsepe, dropped to the lowest in more than a year after the company\u2019s board approved investments of almost $1 billion in two South African mines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>ARM\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.profiledata.co.za\/JSE_SENS_PDF\/history\/2026\/07\/23\/SENS_20260723_S524486.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">said<\/a>\u00a0on Thursday it plans to spend R15.2 billion over seven years to expand the Bokoni platinum-group metals asset and R753 million to reopen the Nkomati nickel operation.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The stock dropped as much as 9.7%, and was down 8.5% as of 12h15 in Johannesburg. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The company\u2019s mining portfolio also spans coal, gold and manganese, while Motsepe is ARM\u2019s chairman and single biggest shareholder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>ARM suspended Bokoni last year amid weak PGM prices, taking a R2.2 billion\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2025-09-05\/african-rainbow-profit-slumps-90-after-platinum-losses-deepen\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">impairment<\/a>\u00a0at the mine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The company said it has revised its development plan, intending to bring the asset back into operation in 2028 before doubling processing capacity from 2030.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Autocatalysts that curb emissions from gasoline and diesel vehicles are the biggest source of PGM demand, so mining companies are sensitive to the growth of the electric-vehicle market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>ARM\u2019s long-term outlook for PGMs \u201cremains constructive, notwithstanding the anticipated impact of battery electric vehicle penetration,\u201d the company said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cSustained underinvestment, accelerating shaft depletion in South Africa and structural decline across other producing regions are collectively expected to progressively reduce primary supply.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once finished, Bokoni\u2019s expansion will add up to 400,000 ounces a year to ARM\u2019s PGM output, according to the statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In April, ARM&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2026-04-28\/south-africa-s-arm-signs-nickel-supply-deal-with-boliden\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">announced<\/a>&nbsp;it had signed a conditional deal to sell nickel from the mothballed Nkomati mine to a Finnish smelter owned by Boliden AB.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The board has now authorised the resumption of mining and production at Nkomati, although the offtake agreement with Boliden is yet to become unconditional, it said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shares in African Rainbow Minerals dropped to the lowest in more than a year after the company\u2019s board approved investments of almost $1 billion in two South African mines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":817481,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2080259396160921761","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[3236,4136],"class_list":["post-867240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-arm","tag-patrice-motsepe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=867240"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":867241,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867240\/revisions\/867241"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/817481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=867240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=867240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=867240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}