Africa-Press – South-Africa. A mining company partly owned by African Rainbow Minerals plans to shed hundreds of jobs at its loss-making Cato Ridge plant.
The mining giant, founded by billionaire businessman Patrice Motsepe, announced this on Monday, 30 June, after market close.
African Rainbow Minerals and South African-based mining company Assore own 50% each of Assmang, a manganese and iron ore miner among the top ten producers of ferromanganese globally.
Assmang has been under significant pressure due to its Cato Ridge Works (CRW) plant, which was established in 1956 to beneficiate manganese ore from its mines in the Northern Cape.
The CRW operation has made significant and unsustainable financial losses, and Assmang said it has explored alternatives to closure.
However, the company has now decided to close CRW permanently, leading to job losses for many of its employees.
Assmang’s Cato Ridge operations currently employ 358 permanent employees and 193 contractors, but did not specify how many of these employees will be affected by the closure.
African Rainbow Minerals said all affected employees will be retrenched effective 31 August 2025.
The company explained that the CRW complex will be remediated and, together with the vacant land, redeveloped into a commercial and logistics hub.
In addition to shuttering CRW, Assmang plans to sell some of the plant’s assets to Assore SA PropCo, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Assore.
These assets include specific land parcels, properties and houses, at an aggregate purchase price of R453.23 million.
The sale agreement for this deal was signed on 27 June 2025 by Assmang, Assore SA Propco, Assore, CRDC, Feralloys and African Rainbow Minerals.
In a separate deal, Assmang, Assore SA, African Rainbow Minerals and Malaysia-based Sakura have also entered into a sale agreement.
This agreement will see Assmang sell all of its Sakura to Assore. Assmang currently holds 54.36% of Sakura’s issued shares.
Following the closing of this transaction, Assmang is expected to distribute R900 million in cash to African Rainbow Minerals.
Assmang’s structure is shown in the image below.
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