To Business Hell And Back

Not long ago, Toronto-listed firm Platinum Group Metal's share price was almost worthless. However, its Waterberg project is turning the tide for the company.

- David McKay

as far as brutal self-assessments are concerned, Mike Jones’s acknowledgement of his company’s shortcomings is as honest and as raw as they come. Jones is CEO of Platinum Group Metals (PTM), a Toronto-listed firm that spent more than 15 years developing the Maseve platinum project before selling last year for a knockdown $70m to Royal Bafokeng Platinum (RBPlat), a transaction conducted amid significant business distress.

“We’re starting from scratch,” he said when asked how the investment community viewed PTM’s latest project, the Waterberg PGM project situated north of the northernmost part of the Bushveld Complex, home to vast swathes of the world’s platinum group metals (PGMs).

Maseve didn’t work out. Between completing the feasibility on the project and production, the platinum price dropped from $1 500 per ounce to $900 per ounce.

PTM wasn’t alone as most of SA’s platinum producers had the rug similarly pulled from under their feet. Anglo American Platinum (Amplats), for instance, shut or sold hundreds of thousands of ounces in PGM production over this period.