‘Breathtaking’ set of interims from Valterra

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DUDUZILE RAMELA: The world’s largest platinum producer by value, Valterra Platinum Group, has delivered a masterclass on how to let the work speak for itself through their results for the [six months] ending June 30th.

Between January and June profit margins increased significantly, driven by stronger prices within the platinum group as well as elevated production and sales. Headline earnings per share increased to R82.02 from R4.73. That’s a 1 633% jump compared to the previous period.

Revenue increased 94% to R82 billion, and adjusted Ebitda [earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation] margin rose fourfold to R33.4 billion.

Craig Miller is the CEO of Valterra. He joins us on the line for more. What a breathtaking set of results, Craig. You’ve recorded growth across all key financial metrics. Were you surprised?

CRAIG MILLER: Hi. Good evening Dudu.

Surprised? Maybe not. I’ve been incredibly proud of what the team has been able to accomplish in the six months.

And I think it just highlights the real value that we all see in our business and our ability to be able to really create sustainable value for all of our stakeholders.

DUDUZILE RAMELA: Congratulations. Let’s take a look at the operational performance, and you can talk us through production and sales. What did you witness there?

CRAIG MILLER: Yes. So our production from our mines – our own mines increased 9% in the first half of the year to about one million ounces.

Our refined production increased 25% from last year, and that really is on the back of the recovery from the flooding incident that we had at the beginning of last year, as well as some inventory optimisation work that we’ve been doing because of the stability in our downstream processing.

And that translated into a 17% increase in sales.

Given that platinum group metal prices were up 66% in rand terms, we certainly lent into that higher price environment, and that translated into the results that we’ve published today.

DUDUZILE RAMELA: So the company’s mining Ebitda margin expanded by 50%. What does that speak to, especially when we look at cost discipline?

CRAIG MILLER: Yes. We’ve been very focused around driving efficiencies within the business as you would have seen today.

So, despite inflation rising and inflation in our businesses [being] around 7% – 1% of that is because of the conflict in the Middle East.

We’ve been able to offset that with efficiencies across the entire value chain.

So we’re very focused around driving further cost savings and we’re going to realise more energy savings in the second half of the year as our renewable energy programme comes through.

But more importantly, just operating the assets more stably and [being] really focused on value, which will help propel us into, I think, a good financial position for the whole of 2026.

DUDUZILE RAMELA: You are sitting with a very strong balance sheet. How did the investment-grade debt note programme actually contribute to the results?

CRAIG MILLER: Yes. We issued R2 billion of debt notes earlier in the year, and the benefit of that was our inaugural bond issuances.

So we certainly went into the market. But the benefit of that is our interest cost is about a one percentage point lower than what we currently have.

That left us at the half year with about R55 billion of facilities.

But really, because of the strong operating and financial performance, we’re able to finish the half year with about R24 billion worth of cash on the balance sheet, which has enabled us to pay the R15 billion out in an interim dividend payable to shareholders at the end of August.

DUDUZILE RAMELA: Unfortunately you were not incident-free. What sort of measures have been put in place to deal with this?

CRAIG MILLER: Yes. Tragically, we had three fatalities during the first half of the year.

We’re incredibly saddened by that and we’re doubling our efforts to ensure that we can achieve zero harm across the operation.

So we’ve strengthened some of our procedures. We are certainly looking at how we deal with risk in our business and how we mitigate that, and take people out of harm’s way.

But most importantly, we’re looking to continue to simplify ways of operating so that our team members can be in the front and supervisors can be in the front line engaging with us, our team members, at the rock face and ultimately looking to protect people and ensure that they go home safely every single day.

DUDUZILE RAMELA: The PGM [platinum group metals] market in this period experienced a substantial recovery. I look at the price of platinum today. It’s down 1.3%. As we look ahead, if you will, what can we really expect? Is it a fair question?

CRAIG MILLER: I think it’s perfectly valid. You’re not alone in asking the question. Everybody else does.

From our perspective, yes, certainly we’ve seen that.

We saw a significant rally in prices in the first quarter of the year. They’ve come off a bit now, but they’re still 30% higher than the average for 2025. So a meaningful step up.

And I do feel that the prices broadly reflect the underlying demand for PGMs, particularly in the industrial space. You’re still seeing a really healthy automotive demand outside of China.

And then obviously you continue to see investment demand playing itself out.

So we have a positive outlook for the market. And then if you underpin that with anticipated deficits in platinum, palladium and rhodium for the next year or so – palladium much longer actually, where we see a deficit into the medium term – that gives us the confidence that PGM prices are expected to remain elevated.

Consequently that enables us to invest back into the assets of Valterra Platinum and be disciplined in terms of how we allocate capital to grow production, but also to return value to shareholders.

DUDUZILE RAMELA: Fair enough. Maybe just quickly, if you please, just talk us through your sustainability efforts.

CRAIG MILLER: Yes. Sustainability is integrated into absolutely everything that we do.

And we look at sustainability from both a value-creation and a value-protection perspective.

We’re quite focused around the climate and the environment.

And so you’d have seen today that we highlighted the 30% renewable energy supply that we now have into the business, which not only gives us reliable energy but also reduces our costs and importantly reduces our carbon footprint, which is key to what our customers and what our society is asking us.

So, particularly focused around that, we’re looking at actively ensuring that we achieve carbon neutrality by the end of the next decade; and I’m working with the team to see how we can bring that forward.

Similar to that we’ll also look at supporting our host communities and local communities, and you would have seen today that in the six months we also commissioned a five-megalitre-per-day water treatment plant, which not only reduces our water requirements at our operations, but actually gives the community access to clean water.

So it’s absolutely integrated into all of our work, and we’ll continue to progress that because we do think that that is a value-protection and a value-creation opportunity.

DUDUZILE RAMELA: Craig, well done to you and your team.

Craig Miller is the CEO of Valterra Platinum, the world’s largest platinum producer by value.

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