{"id":872497,"date":"2026-08-28T10:32:06","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T08:32:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=872497"},"modified":"2026-08-28T10:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T08:32:09","slug":"832-jump-in-profits-for-south-african-mining-giant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/872497\/832-jump-in-profits-for-south-african-mining-giant\/","title":{"rendered":"832% jump in profits for South African mining giant"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Northam Platinum Holdings, a major player in South Africa’s mining industry, has seen its year-on-year profit rise by over 830%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company was founded in 1977 and has three primary mining operations in Limpopo, Mpumalanga, and the North West.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Across its mining and administrative operations, the company employs approximately 24,600 permanent staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within its operations, the group works in both mining and refining, with two smelter furnaces at its Zondereinde mine and several chrome concentrators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group primarily mines platinum group metals (PGMs), which include metals often found alongside platinum, such as Palladium and iridium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In its latest financial results for the year ended 30 June, Northam reported sales revenue of just under R54 billion, an increase of approximately R21 billion from 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its profit for the year reached R13.9 billion, roughly an 832% increase from the previous financial year’s R1.49 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The operating profit also rose by 293.8% to R14.2 billion, which the company attributed to higher sales prices and improved production volumes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company also saw its basic earnings per share increase by around 824%, which was reported at R35.26 per share, and diluted earnings per share rose to R34.59.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Headline Earnings Per Share (HEPS) reached R30.44 for the 2026 financial year, up from R3.80 in the prior period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The increases in revenue and profit came as Northam saw an 8% increase in total metal volume sold, which rose to approximately 1.1 million ounces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Northam said the financial improvement came from “Deliberate and prudent financial management, through disciplined liquidity management and capital allocation”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Northam Platinum is the latest among several PGM mining companies to report strong financial results for 2026, following record platinum prices at the start of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A record year for platinum<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Several platinum mining groups have reported strong financial results for 2026, following January’s record high platinum prices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The platinum price rose sharply at the start of 2026, peaking above $2,800 per ounce at the end of January.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The price has since settled, currently trading at roughly $1,878 per ounce, but the sharp rise gave mining operations a strong boost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Companies such as Valterra Platinum have seen revenue increase sharply, and headline earnings rose by roughly 1,600% in its latest interim results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Along with higher platinum prices, Northam said its strong results were due to increased production volumes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Northam said in its integrated report that the current global AI boom would support platinum mining groups, given the use of platinum in electronics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It said platinum is a critical component for hard disk drives used in AI data centres, and is a key resource for producing proton exchange membrane fuel cells.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“As AI scales at dizzying heights, PGMs are playing an increasingly instrumental role in this transition, from data storage to power resilience and beyond,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Fears of AI can be reframed as an opportunity to unlock new and unexpected platforms for PGM demand going forward, by innovating a cleaner, greener, fairer future.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the Northam group saw impressive earnings, its core company recorded increased losses for the 2026 financial year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2025, the company recorded losses of approximately R18.4 million, which extended to R20.3 million in 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These losses in the core company were due to sundry expenditure and did not have a major impact on the group’s overall R13.8 billion profit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Northam Platinum financial results<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/td>Year ended 30 June 2026<\/strong><\/td>Year ended 30 June 2025<\/strong><\/td>Change<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
Sales revenue<\/strong> (R’000)<\/td>53,998,628<\/td>32,901,199<\/td>+64.1%<\/td><\/tr>
Cost of sales<\/strong> (R’000)<\/td>(39,845,615)<\/td>(29,307,682)<\/td>+36.0%<\/td><\/tr>
Profit<\/strong> (R’000)<\/td>13,883,070<\/td>1,488,772<\/td>+832.5%<\/td><\/tr>
Headline earnings<\/strong> (R’000)<\/td>11,985,667<\/td>1,486,208<\/td>+706.5%<\/td><\/tr>
Basic earnings per share<\/strong> (cents)<\/td>3,526.1<\/td>381.4<\/td>+824.5%<\/td><\/tr>
Headline earnings per share<\/strong> (cents)<\/td>3,044.2<\/td>380.8<\/td>+699.4%<\/td><\/tr>
Final Dividend<\/strong> (cents)<\/td>1,000.0<\/td>200.0<\/td>+400.0%<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Northam Platinum has seen its profits soar by over 832% since 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":872536,"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":"2093255353911648582","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2188962451924154","_sma_instagram_post_id":"17987181962863260","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26322,26323,25969,23641],"class_list":["post-872497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-northam-platinum-mining","tag-pgm","tag-platinum","tag-valterra"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872497","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\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=872497"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":872547,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872497\/revisions\/872547"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/872536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=872497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=872497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=872497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}