South African platinum dramas continue as Wesizwe top brass is sacked

Top dogs at Wesizwe fired with immediate effect, apparently in connection with disputed bonuses.

JOHANNESBURG - 

WeSizwe, a South African platinum developer, today told the Johannesburg bourse that its CEO, Mike Solomon, and Robert Gordon Rainey, by latest accounts the acting chairman, had stepped down with immediate effect. Nyasha Tengawarima, CFO since 30 June this year, has stepped in as acting CEO "until the board has identified a suitable replacement".

While local media had speculated earlier on Tuesday that something was afoot at Wesizwe, none ventured the possibility that Solomon and Rainey had been involved in a hostile discussion (not between themselves) over bonuses. While this is not a matter that either the company or the individuals would discuss on the record, the information from insiders, there for refutation, is that an amount of R14m was involved.

Wesizwe officially also announced that "shareholders are advised that the company has received notification that Messrs. Solomon and Rainey intend bringing an application to challenge their removal as directors". Whatever the reason/s, this part of the announcement confirms that their departure was hardly amicable. Apparently four of the seven board directors voted for the pair to be sacked.

Wesizwe has been struggling for months, if not years, to raise capital for its core South African project, Frischgewaagd-Ledig, which made it past the full bankable feasibility study barrier back in March 2008. Measured by stock price performance, Wesizwe is a serial underperformer. Either way, turmoil of a kind continues in the southern African platinum sector, host of 80% of the world's platinum-group-metal (PGM) deposits.

Last month, Fred Roux, one of South Africa's more prominent mining men, was sacked as chairman of global No 2 PGM miner Impala Platinum, by its board of directors. Niall Carroll, apparently in his role as CEO of Royal Bafokeng Holdings, which earns untold millions a year in the form of royalties from Impala, and separately ranks as the biggest shareholder in Impala, played a key role in that story.

On a more positive note, and more recently, Tom Dale was announced as the new CEO at Platmin, the newest platinum producer in southern Africa. The global PGM sector has been in a spin for more than a year, after platinum, palladium and rhodium prices collapsed after mid-2008, along with prices for a number of further byproduct metals cranked out by primary platinum producers, not least nickel. Prices have, of course, recovered well for most of this year.

For its part, Platmin has been funded out of the abyss over the past few years by Pallinghurst Resources; its chairman, Brian Gilbertson, took over as chairman of Platmin, renewing a high level connection with Dale seen between the two a decade and more ago, mainly upon the formation of the modern Gold Fields.

Disclaimer

MINEWEB is an interactive publication, with rolling deadlines through each day, commencing in the Sydney morning,  and concluding, 24 hours later,  in the Vancouver evening.  If you believe your side of an issue deserves inclusion, but has failed to meet one of our deadlines, you are invited to notify the Editor in Chief in Johannesburg, and we will include you in our editing and expanding on our stories. Email him at alechogg@gmail.com

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