SIBANYE-Stillwater CEO, Neal Froneman, has raised the prospect again of the company shifting its primary listing to New York in order to attract a better rating.
The move would also be in keeping with the firm’s expansion strategy which is likely to be increasingly offshore.
“Looking offshore for growth is just a logical extension of where we are now,” Froneman said in an interview with Bloomberg News. “No firm decision has been made, but I think if we are to grow, we would have to change our primary listing because there is no real growth in South Africa,” he said.
Having an offshore listing would expose the company to a wider pool of potential investors, said the newswire. “If you have a decent international portfolio of assets and you change primary listing, I daresay you get a re-rating because you become more acceptable.”
Froneman has commented on a potential offshore listing before. In March, he told an audience at a breakfast meeting that the removal of the perceived ‘South African’ discount from the firm’s share price was uppermost in his mind when competing for international assets, and using the firm’s paper to finance them.
More than a third of Sibanye-Stillwater’s shareholders are domiciled in the US, a country that welcomed investments and where communities and labour were far less hostile than those in South Africa towards mining operations, said BusinessLive at the time.
Froneman’s comments regarding low growth options in South Africa, which is also hampered by continued regulatory uncertainty, throws into relief efforts by AngloGold Ashanti to sell its Mponeng mine.
In the past, Sibanye-Stillwater would be a natural bidder for Mponeng, but given the firm’s high debt position and interest in adding battery minerals to its portfolio may suggest that its next deal extends beyond its home border.
