Lonmin still on life support

South African platinum producer Lonmin has launched a third rights issue in seven years.

768-Lonmin-634

South African platinum producer Lonmin has launched a third rights issue in seven years. It is selling 27 billion shares at 1p per share, a 94% discount to last week's price. Investors can buy 46 new shares for each one they own. Lonmin's stock has slid 90% this year amid a 30% decline in the platinum price. The company also had to cope with strikes and rising costs.

What the commentators said

Lonmin's problems have been further "compounded by a costly and ineffective attempt to introduce more mechanised mining a decade ago" and the "complexities" of operating in highly unionised and strike-riven South Africa, which supplies most of the world's platinum. By following their rights, said Andy Critchlow on breakingviews.com, investors "are effectively betting" that platinum prices will recover by up to 50%. Lonmin "is still on life support". "I will be amazed", says Paul Gait of Bernstein Research, "if Lonmin is still trading in five years' time."

Subscribe to MoneyWeek

Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Get 6 issues free
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/mw70aro6gl1676370748.jpg

Sign up to Money Morning

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Sign up

Marina Gerner is an award-winning journalist and columnist who has written for the Financial Times, the Times Literary Supplement, the Economist, The Guardian and Standpoint magazine in the UK; the New York Observer in the US; and die Bild and Frankfurter Rundschau in Germany.

Marina is also an adjunct professor at the NYU Stern School of Business at their London campus, and has a PhD from the London School of Economics.

Her first book, The Vagina Business, deals with the potential of “femtech” to transform women’s lives, and will be published by Icon Books in September 2024.

Marina is trilingual and lives in London.