Sibanye buys 3 platinum mines for US$330m

Johannesburg

CRIPPLING labour strikes, geriatric mines and precious metals prices scraping along at their lowest levels in half a decade don't faze Neal Froneman, head of the world's best-performing gold producer over the past two years.

Mr Froneman, known in the industry as "Mr Fixit", defied investors' scepticism to build up Sibanye Gold Ltd from a spin-off of three old, strike-prone South African mines owned by Gold Fields Ltd.

Now he wants to do it again in platinum and maybe even coal.

"We think that we're very well positioned to move into other difficult social environments within South Africa and make a meaningful difference," Mr Froneman, Sibanye's chief executive officer, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. "We have some experience and we understand these risks ver…