African Rainbow Minerals


African Rainbow Minerals Limited is a mining company based in South Africa. ARM has interests in a wide range of mines, including platinum and platinum group metals, iron, coal, copper, and gold. ARM's Goedgevonden coalmine near Witbank is a flagship of their joint venture with Xstrata, and produces 6.7 million tons of coal per year. Production is expanding at the Two Rivers platinum mine in Mpumalanga. ARM owns 20% of Harmony Gold, the 12th largest gold mining company in the world with three mining operations in South Africa. Patrice Motsepe is the executive chairman; Mike Schmidt is CEO.

History

ARM was founded by Patrice Motsepe as South Africa's first black-owned mining company.
Motsepe founded ARMGold in 1997, which went on to list on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in 2002. In 2003 ARMGold merged with Harmony Gold Mining to form the world’s 5th largest gold producer. ARMGold went on to merge with Anglovaal Mining.
In 2003 it entered a merger with Harmony Gold Mining and Anglovaal, previously owned by Richard and Brian Menell, and became the largest group controlled by black entrepreneurs.
In 2009, ARM joined the International Council on Mining and Metals.
In February 2016, ARM put a further $148 million bail out in place to preserve their broad-based black economic empowerment status. In March 2016, ARM reported that profits had been halved due to lower commodity prices.

Expansion outside South Africa

In August 2010, ARM entered a $380 million joint venture with Vale to build a copper mine in Zambia, which is expected to produce 100,000 tons of copper. In 2009, ARM was reported to be planning $1.12 billion investments in mining in Zimbabwe. ARM also has a 50% stake in Morobe Mining Joint Ventures of Papua New Guinea. MMJV has operations in Hidden Valley and Wafi-Golpu in Morobe Province approximately 50 kilometers south-west of Lae, Papua New Guinea.