Mantengu Mining Limited CEO, Mike Miller,
Mantengu Mining Limited has attracted attention lately due to allegations of share manipulation by investors.
However, the company’s CEO, Mike Miller, accused a “JSE-linked criminal syndicate” of lowering the firm’s share price.
Mantengu’s documents, courts, and regulators present a more nuanced picture of the furore that attracted the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) to investigate suspected naked short selling.
Naked short selling occurs when traders sell shares without owning or borrowing them, thereby forcing prices down to facilitate a hostile takeover or asset stripping.
The FSCA concluded that “the transactions and orders identified by Mantengu were lawful securities in the ordinary course of business” and found “no reason to suspect improper conduct by the JSE or any of its officials”.
However, Miller dismissed the outcome as “narrowly scoped” and “fatally flawed”.
Then, it sought urgent relief against the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), accusing it of “censoring” for declining to publish the company’s manipulation claims on SENS.
The Johannesburg High Court struck the application in October, finding Mantengu had withheld key information, including the FSCA report, and calling the matter an “abuse of the court process”.
Punitive costs were awarded — a sanction reserved for conduct deemed misleading — and then Miller, in the media, framed the firm as a victim of manipulation.
The feud
It all started after a meeting in which Zunaid Moti challenged Miller’s share-price narrative.
It has since culminated in Moti openly dissecting Mantengu’s financials and filing a criminal complaint against Miller for defamation and the deliberate spread of false information. The case remains under investigation.
At the centre of Moti’s critique is Mantengu’s 2022 reverse-listing transaction, through which it acquired Langpan Mining Company (Pty) Ltd.
A shareholder circular dated 30 May 2022 valued the deal at R550 million. Since then, Mantengu has cited a valuation of about R851 million — and now, says Miler, it is roughly R1.5 billion at current prices.
The same circular includes an Independent Expert’s Report by Letsema Corporate Finance, which determined a pre-transaction valuation of R27.5 million for Langpan and a most likely value of zero for Mantengu’s own shares before the deal.
Letsema’s task was to judge the fairness of the transaction to shareholders.
Miller insists “there was no valuation at R27.5 million”, but the report states it, and a value for Mantengu of 0.0 cents per share. On those figures, any acquisition would appear “fair” – since it’s difficult to get a deal worse than zero.
The fairness opinion didn’t endorse the R550 million figure, nor did it reconcile the gulf between that figure and Letsema’s R27.5 million valuation.
A 2021 Competent Person’s Report (CPR) by Bara Consulting offered broader valuation ranges for Langpan, from negative R19 million to just over R1 billion. Its “preferred” base case gave R223 million excluding platinum group metals (PGMs) and R851 million including them.
Miller argues there is “no disparity” in the numbers, noting JSE-approved experts and the Readers Panel signed off the CPR.
The top-end valuation also presumes that PGM revenues begin simultaneously with chrome production – something that, by Miller’s own admission, has not occurred.
Langpan is “stockpiling” PGM-bearing material and has not begun processing, meaning a major portion of Mantengu’s declared asset value remains unverified.
About the potential cost of a flotation plant for processing PGMs, Miller told the Mail & Guardian that “without understanding the size of the plant and specifics around the grades of PGMs, this question cannot be answered accurately”— confirming that the company does not yet know the precise PGM grades underpinning its valuation.
Mantengu floated the idea of a mobile PGM plant, initially for Blue Ridge Platinum (which it acquired from Sibanye-Stillwater) and, later, possibly for Langpan, or using the Kilken Plant as an “alternative processing option”.
But Kilken processes live tailings, not run-of-mine feed — a distinction that creates practical constraints.
In another twist, Mantengu announced plans to acquire a “controlling interest” in Kilken Platinum – a company owned by the Moti Group.
Meanwhile, Moti notes that investors are asked to price billions on “future PGM recoveries that remain unverified and unfunded.”
Timing, he says, is vital – if PGM revenues are delayed for years, their real value collapses.
Mantengu’s 2025 annual report gives them scant attention, despite PGMs accounting for roughly three-quarters of the CPR’s “preferred” valuation.
Profits on paper
Miller promotes an image of profitability and growth.
In interviews, he cited a net profit after tax of around R300 million. At the same time, the company’s audited 2025 statements show an operating profit of R4 million, interest expenses exceeding R60 million, and liabilities of some R429 million.
A major source of Mantengu’s net profit is the acquisition of Sublime Acquisitions, described as a “bargain purchase” that added R350 million in net assets for zero rand.
The reason for this curiously lucky turn of events, Miller explained, was that the “previous owners were US-based and wanted to exit the African market.”
Moti is unconvinced: “It stretches belief that any owner would simply walk away from a business with that level of apparent value.”
Miller’s explanation, he said, “invites serious questions about what risks or motives lie behind such generosity.”
Another quiet pressure point sits in Mantengu’s capital structure.
The company holds an R500 million share-subscription facility with GEM (Bahamas).
Miller confirms GEM subscribes for shares and sells them into the market and says roughly 48.8 million shares (or about 17% of Mantengu’s issued stock) were issued under the arrangement by year-end.