Moti plots double-pronged strategy for Zim operations

BUSINESS tycoon Zunaid Moti, the founder of the Moti Group, may have recently stepped away from the group’s multi-billion-rand helm to allow for fresh leadership and growth, but he has a double-pronged strategy to generate further wealth.

The Moti Group is a private family-owned investment group of roughly 250 companies, with interests in a wide range of industries such as property development, car financing, aviation, mining and beneficiation.

While Mikaeel Moti, the executive chairperson, and the former director-general of the National Treasury, Dondo Mogajane, the CEO of the Moti Group, restructure the family-owned business and beef up corporate governance, Moti is doubling down on African Chrome Fields, one of Zimbabwe’s biggest chrome miners, including finalising the construction of a hi-tech aluminothermic factory.

Moti, who said he is done with selling luxury financing, is eyeing opportunities in mining.

“I never get into businesses that are luxurious any more. It’s seasonal and cyclical, based on cash flow and inflation,” Moti said, adding that he was looking at basic products for everyday use.

Going forward, Moti has big plans for African Chrome Fields, “his baby”, and a hi-tech aluminothermic factory, which he believes will be a cash cow.

Moti said groundbreaking smelting technology, the exothermic processing, drastically reduces the time to refine chrome from the conventional six hours to less than a minute.

The process doesn’t involve electricity, but powdered aluminium as a source of super fuel.

Moti explained why this was an important development.

“With climate change and acid rain, steel oxidises. Mild steel rusts. Over the years I realised the special ingredient to stainless steel, 16% to 18% ferrochrome. So you can only go from mild steel to stainless steel by using ferrochrome. Stainless steel is resistant to being oxidised.

“With climate change you have to move away from mild steel at some stage. Mild steel products now have a lifespan of around six years from 15 years due to acid rain. This means if you buy stainless steel, you have three times more of a lifespan than mild steel. So when you look at cost versus benefit, most people will start buying stainless steel from a longevity perspective as it makes more sense,” Moti said.

He said for building purposes people would have to turn to stainless steel going forward as the cost of having to strip and maintain mild steel with remedial work was too expensive.

The whole African Chrome Fields investment in Zimbabwe was roughly between US$200 million (R3.6 billion) to US$400 million.

Moti said he had sunk a roughly U$20 million investment into the aluminothermic factory, which would open in June or July.

“It has taken me about 10 years to research and develop the concept. I started construction in 2016. It took patience. This is my dream,” he said.

Talking about African Chrome Fields, situated along the Great Dyke in Central

Zimbabwe, Moti said it was one of the first alluvial chrome businesses in the world with 35 to 45 years of chrome reserves left.

African Chrome Fields produces about 300 000 tons of concentrated chromium per year with grade 50% Cr2O3 grade via surface mining. The chrome to iron ratio is two to one.

“It is the best chrome in the world. If God ever had a good day and he dropped something out there, it would have been in Zimbabwe. It is unbelievable from a resource perspective,” Moti said.

African Chrome Fields supplies Afrochine Chrome Smelting, a stainless steel manufacturer, as well as mining giant Glencore.

“The idea behind what I am doing is once the factory opens, it becomes an institution of excellence, the best chromium in the world and the purest low-carbon ferrochrome which is produced without using electricity,” Moti said.

And while Moti looks to the future, mining has been a lucrative business for the Moti Group.

Commodity prices have soared after Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In the Moti Group stable is Kilken Platinum, a South African platinum group metal retreatment business, which benefited from the bullish commodity price.

The Moti Group is a majority partner in the Kilken Imbani Joint Venture with Imbani Minerals, operating a platinum tailings retreatment processing plant adjacent to Amandelbult mine near Thabazimbi in the Limpopo province. This plant is operated in association with Rustenburg Platinum Mines, a subsidiary of Anglo American Platinum.

Of key importance to the Moti Group is the establishment of a $1bn new lithium mining project in Zimbabwe with leadership team Moti Group’s CEO Mogajane and Mikaeel Moti in the driver’s seat.

Moti Group’s Pulserate Investments, a lithium mining company, owns some 84 lithium claims covering nearly 10 000 hectares in the Mashonaland East province, where it is performing extensive exploration studies, and it is also in the process of establishing and commissioning mining operations, including supporting infrastructure.

The Moti Group would reveal further developments in due course, Moti said.

Meanwhile, Moti said he had learned not to be in debt via lessons from his past with Investec.

“The family have under 1% to 1.5% of total assets in debt. We only take on small debt positions.”

In about 2011, it emerged in news reports that Abalengani, the property investment arm of the Moti family, had extensive property dealings before the start of the global economic crisis, which had a severely negative effect on the property market. It emerged that Moti owed Investec about R1.5bn. He reached a settlement deal with Investec.

When asked if the Moti Group would ever list on the JSE, he said: “No. I have specific legacy requirements. Don’t take other people’s money and don’t make debt.”

With big developments on the horizon, the long-term plans of Moti Group under its new leadership are finally coming together, and Moti is loving it.