South African billionaire Patrice Motsepe's African Rainbow Minerals stake drops to $781 million

Editor's note: Billionaires.Africa will soon launch AMSI, the Africa $10 Million Shareholdings Index, which will rank and value the disclosed stakes that named individuals hold in companies with a primary listing on an African stock exchange. The index will combine each person's holdings across exchanges, include everyone whose disclosed holdings add up to at least $10 million, and update stock prices and valuations daily. Stock-market net worth reports such as this one, built on disclosed shareholdings and closing prices, are part of the work leading up to the launch. Tips on the beneficial owners of shareholding vehicles on African stock exchanges can be sent to tips@billionaires.africa.

South African billionaire Patrice Motsepe's controlling stake in African Rainbow Minerals Ltd., the Johannesburg-listed mining group he founded, is worth R12.99 billion ($781 million), after the company's shares fell 27% this year.

Motsepe owns 90,021,061 shares in African Rainbow Minerals, known as ARM, equal to 43.1% of the 208.7 million shares in issue. At Friday's closing price of R144.25 on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, the stake is worth R12,985,538,049, or $780.85 million at an exchange rate of R16.63 to the dollar.

He holds the shares through African Rainbow Minerals & Exploration Investments (Pty) Ltd., known as ARMI, the company's largest shareholder. ARMI is wholly owned by Ubuntu-Ubuntu Commercial Enterprises, whose shares are held by trusts set up for Motsepe and his immediate family, and part of the benefit of the holding goes to the Motsepe Foundation. In June, Motsepe moved 62,427 ARM shares he received under the company's share incentive plan into ARMI at R206.92 each, a deal worth R12.9 million.

The next biggest investors are the ARM Broad-Based Economic Empowerment Trust, which owned 7.62% at the end of June 2025, and South Africa's Government Employees Pension Fund, with 6.2%. Norway's central bank, which runs the country's sovereign wealth fund, disclosed a 5.02% stake in May.

ARM ended 2025 at R198.90 a share. At that price the same 90 million shares were worth R17.91 billion, or $1.08 billion at the year-end exchange rate of R16.57 to the dollar. The fall since then has cut R4.92 billion ($300 million) from the value of the holding. The shares have traded between R142.34 and R276.68 over the past 52 weeks and closed on Friday less than 2% above the low. The company's market value now stands at about R30.1 billion ($1.81 billion).

Motsepe still collects large dividends. ARM paid a final dividend of R7 a share on Oct. 12, worth about R630 million ($37.9 million) on his holding, which brought the total for the year to June 30 to R12 a share, or about R1.08 billion ($65 million). Billionaires.Africa reported in September on the size of that payout.

Platinum lifts earnings as iron ore and manganese slip

ARM reported headline earnings of R3.2 billion ($192.5 million) for the year to June 30, up 19% from R2.7 billion a year earlier. Headline earnings per share rose to R16.60 from R13.79, and revenue climbed 25% to R16.3 billion ($981.5 million). Basic earnings jumped to R4 billion from R330 million, a year that had been weighed down by impairments.

Platinum group metals drove the improvement. Prices for the metals rose by more than 50%, and the platinum division swung to headline earnings of R1.35 billion ($80.9 million) from a loss of R1.29 billion. Two Rivers, the mine ARM runs with Impala Platinum, earned R1.2 billion ($72.3 million), up from R202 million. Modikwa, its joint venture with Valterra Platinum, earned R683 million ($41.1 million) after a small loss the year before. Bokoni, which ARM bought from Anglo American Platinum and Atlatsa Resources for R3.5 billion in a deal completed in September 2022, narrowed its loss to R579 million ($34.8 million).

The ferrous division, which holds ARM's half of iron ore and manganese producer Assmang, went the other way. Its headline earnings fell 42% to R2.03 billion ($121.9 million), hurt by a stronger rand and weaker manganese prices. Manganese earnings dropped 68%, and iron ore earnings fell 41%.

Part of the iron ore decline came from Beeshoek, a mine in the Northern Cape that sold its ore only to ArcelorMittal South Africa. The steelmaker's supply contract expired in June 2024, and its last deliveries were made on July 27, 2025. Assmang stopped mining at Beeshoek at the end of October 2025 and placed it on care and maintenance, saying it was "no longer economically feasible to operate." About 622 permanent workers lost their jobs. The closure cost ARM R124 million in retrenchment costs, R191 million in higher rehabilitation provisions and R92 million in care and maintenance. Khumani, the larger iron ore mine nearby, exported 180,000 more tons, but a rand about 7% stronger against the dollar eroded the gain.

The coal business, which ARM owns with Glencore Plc, posted a headline loss of R428 million ($25.7 million) on lower prices, compared with a profit of R47 million a year earlier. ARM said in November 2025 that it would make no new investments in coal, citing the costs of carbon taxes and emissions rules.

ARM ended June with net cash of R10.17 billion ($611.6 million), up R3.56 billion in a year, and its gross debt fell to R157 million from R2.04 billion. That figure excludes R3.9 billion ($234.5 million) of cash attributable to ARM inside Assmang. Dividends from Harmony Gold Mining Co., in which ARM owns about 12%, more than doubled to R512 million ($30.8 million) as gold prices rose. Motsepe also chairs Harmony. The company recorded no fatal accidents during the year, its first fatality-free year since 2017.

Bokoni and Nkomati restarts

Investors have also had to weigh a large new spending plan. In July, the board approved almost R16 billion to bring two closed mines back into production. ARM will spend R15.2 billion ($914 million) over seven years to rebuild Bokoni, a platinum mine near Atok in Limpopo province that it suspended in September 2025, when it also wrote the asset down by R2.2 billion. The plan adds a new concentrator with capacity of 120,000 tons a month to the refurbished 60,000-ton plant already on site. ARM expects production from the smaller plant to resume in the first half of its 2028 financial year and the mine to reach steady state in 2032, producing 350,000 to 400,000 ounces of platinum group metals a year.

The company put the project's internal rate of return at 28% and its net present value at R5.9 billion. Funding will come mainly from ARM's own cash, from Bokoni's cash flow during the ramp-up and from debt where needed. The stock fell 8% on the day of the announcement, July 23, wiping about R2.9 billion off ARM's market value. Its shares had traded near R207 in early June.

The board also approved R753 million ($45.3 million) to restart open-pit mining at Nkomati, a nickel mine in Mpumalanga province that stopped producing in 2021. ARM took control of the mine during its 2026 financial year. Plant refurbishment started in July and mining was due to resume this month, with steady-state output of 56,065 tons of nickel concentrate a year over a 13-year mine life. The concentrate is to be sold to Boliden AB, the Swedish metals group, under a deal signed in April that is still subject to conditions.

ARM said in September that it expected Transnet, South Africa's state-owned freight rail and ports company, to invite companies to qualify to run a new manganese export terminal at the Port of Ngqura during the July-to-September quarter. In Canada, its partner Surge Copper Corp. plans to finish a feasibility study on the Berg copper and molybdenum project in 2028 and take an investment decision around 2031.

Court fights with Assore and Pula

ARM is now in court with its partner in Assmang. Assore Ltd., the mining house controlled by South Africa's Sacco family, which owns the other half of Assmang, has sued ARM and Assmang over ARM's right to appoint the venture's senior executives and to manage its operations. ARM disclosed the summons on Oct. 13. Assore chairman Charles Walters said ARM had "appropriated to itself decision-making powers it does not possess," and that Assore had "reluctantly approached the courts."

ARM rejected the claims. "Based on legal advice received, ARM believes Assore's claims and allegations have no substantive merit," the company said. It said it would defend the case and bring its own proceedings to confirm its right to manage Assmang and to obtain records the venture needs to meet its legal and regulatory obligations. The two sides are still negotiating the size and timing of Assmang's final dividend for the year to June. Assmang accounted for about 63% of ARM's headline earnings last year, as Billionaires.Africa reported this month.

Motsepe won a separate case in Tanzania. On Oct. 9, the High Court of Tanzania struck out a $195 million lawsuit brought by U.S.-based Pula Group LLC against Motsepe, ARM, African Rainbow Capital Investments Ltd. and ARCH Sustainable Resources GPCO Ltd. Pula claimed the companies broke a confidentiality agreement by investing in a rival graphite project in Tanzania. "ARM has always viewed the Pula claim to be unfounded and fabricated," the company said. The court had first struck the case off the roll in August, and a South African court ruled against Pula on a related claim in April.

From Future Mining to CAF

Motsepe, 64, trained as a lawyer and became a partner at Bowmans, one of South Africa's largest law firms, before he started Future Mining, a contract mining business, in 1994. In 1997 he formed ARMgold, which bought ageing gold shafts and listed on the JSE in 2002. A year later he merged ARMgold with Harmony Gold and Anglovaal Mining, and Anglovaal was renamed African Rainbow Minerals. He was executive chairman of ARM for more than two decades.

He gave up his executive role on Feb. 16 and became non-executive chairman, a change ARM said was needed to comply with JSE rules that bar a company's chair from being an executive director. Phillip Tobias is chief executive, and Jacques van der Bijl became the group's first chief operating officer on the same day. Motsepe's total pay for the 2025 financial year was R38.46 million ($2.3 million).

Outside ARM, Motsepe is the founder and chairman of African Rainbow Capital, an investment group, and of Ubuntu-Botho Investments, a large shareholder in the insurer Sanlam Ltd. His family owns Mamelodi Sundowns, the South African soccer club. He has been president of the Confederation of African Football since 2021 and was re-elected unopposed in March 2025 for a second four-year term. He and his wife, Precious Moloi-Motsepe, joined the Giving Pledge in 2013, committing to give at least half of the family's wealth to charity.

In 2008 he became the first Black African to be ranked a dollar billionaire. His fortune was estimated at $3.6 billion in early September, with ARM accounting for the largest part of it. His brother-in-law is President Cyril Ramaphosa, and recent polls have named Motsepe the top choice of African National Congress voters to lead the party after Ramaphosa. Motsepe has not said he will run. "The best place for us to play and make that contribution is outside politics," he said in March.