By: Reuters

Sibanye Stillwater (SSWJ.J), said on Friday its annual profit jumped nearly four-fold, buoyed by higher prices of gold and platinum group metals (PGM), helping the diversified miner declare its first dividend since 2023.

Headline earnings for 2025 came in at 2.44 rand per share ($0.1511), compared with 0.64 rand the year before.

Sibanye, which had skipped dividends over the past three years as it battled low PGM prices, declared a payout of 1.31 rand per share, returning 3.7 billion rand to shareholders.

The diversified miner's earnings were boosted by a 39% increase in the average rand gold price and a 28% jump in the average South African PGM basket price.

Its predominantly palladium U.S. operations recorded a 21% increase in the average metal price.

Gold prices soared about 60% in 2025, driven by geopolitical and economic uncertainty, expectations of U.S. interest rate cuts and increased purchases by central banks amid a global de-dollarisation trend.

PGM prices, mainly platinum and palladium, have also rallied since mid-2025 on the back of a market deficit after production costs in major producer South Africa, at a time when demand has risen, especially in China.

Sibanye logged a further 2.46 billion rand impairment of its Keliber lithium project in Finland in the second half of 2025 after a 5.4 billion rand writedown in the first half, citing a deteriorating long-term lithium hydroxide price forecast.

The miner also wrote down 3.8 billion rand from the carrying value of the Kloof gold mine in South Africa due to a decrease in the life of mine, resulting from geological and logistical constraints.

Sibanye's impairments across 2025 amounted to 14 billion rand. The company did, however, reverse 1.9 billion rand of impairments for its Burnstone project as well as Beatrix and Driefontein mines, on the back of higher gold price forecasts.