George Bennett
CEO: Rainbow Rare Earths
‘The commitment of the US government is very much intact. More so than ever’
GIVEN all the complex technical issues involved in Rainbow Rare Earths’ proposed Phalaborwa project – plus negotiating partnerships in countries like Saudi Arabia and Canada – the last thing George Bennett needed was to get caught up in a geopolitical bust-up. But that’s what happened as a result of the spat between South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and US President Donald Trump over the G20 conference held in Johannesburg in November. The result was a 28% drop in the Rainbow share price after it had previously doubled during 2025.
Rainbow is exposed in that all its investors and backers are offshore including – “don’t tell anyone, gov” – the US government’s International Development Finance Corporation, which has an indirect $50m commitment to the project. Bennett says that commitment is not in danger. But his situation was also not helped by the decision to change the proposed mineral separation process for the Phalaborwa project to solvent extraction technology. That resulted in the delay of the project’s definitive feasibility study.
However, the benefit of the process technology change is that forecast annual revenue could be pushed from $70m to around $160m with the recovery of additional rare earths. The powerhouse factor supporting the Phalaborwa project is that it is one of very few rare earth producers outside China. China dominates the market and is actively restricting access by Western nations to these strategically important minerals. Bennett reckons Phalaborwa will be at the lowest end of the industry cost curve.
LIFE OF GEORGE
When Bennett dropped out of university to get involved in Durban’s then-booming ‘rag trade’, it was the start of a diversified career leading to the stock market, the engineering sector and the mining industry. He moved onto the JSE in the mid-1980s, becoming a partner in Simpson McKie, which was subsequently taken over by HSBC. Bennett quit HSBC in 2003 and went gold mining, listing Shanta Gold in London in 2005. Next up was the establishment of MDM Engineering, which he sold in 2017 for $120m.
