Tharisa prices $300m bond to complete Karo Platinum in Zimbabwe

Tharisa has closed a $300m bond that settles how it will pay for the rest of its Karo Platinum project on Zimbabwe's Great Dyke, removing the main question hanging over the JSE-listed platinum and chrome producer.

The five-year senior secured bond, issued through the wholly owned subsidiary Arxo Finance, carries an annual coupon of 11% and was priced at 98% of face value, Miningmx reported on 11 September 2026. Most of the proceeds will go towards completing Karo, where first ore to the mill is now expected in the fourth quarter of 2027. DNB Carnegie and HSBC acted as joint bookrunners, with Absa as co-manager.

The price of jurisdiction

The coupon is high, and Tharisa does not pretend otherwise. Chief executive Phoevos Pouroulis said the pricing reflected both the country in which Karo sits and the fact that the mine is still being built, adding that the company sees it as a starting point rather than a destination. He expects Tharisa's cost of capital to fall once Karo is commissioned and the group has a track record with bond investors.

Arnold van Graan of Nedbank Securities told clients the bond was likely a better outcome than alternatives such as a metal stream or a large equity raise, which could have done more lasting damage to project economics and shareholder value. Another analyst attributed the premium to Zimbabwe risk rather than to Tharisa itself, and noted that the five-year term leaves room to refinance later.

Demand for the paper

The issue was oversubscribed, with more than 150 investors engaging and institutional demand from Europe, the UK, the Middle East, North America and Asia. Berenberg said the bond covers what it expects to be Karo's remaining initial capital needs and pointed out that first production is now expected earlier than it had assumed.

Tharisa needed the money. By the end of June it had already put $241m of its own equity into Karo, and while it held $198.8m in cash, net cash had fallen to $10.7m as spending on Karo and on the underground transition at its Tharisa mine in North West province rose.

A multi-mine producer by 2027

The financing completes a busy few weeks. On 24 August Karo signed a 25-year special mining lease with the Zimbabwean government, and Tharisa then agreed a five-year offtake under which Valterra Platinum will take Karo's concentrate. Berenberg said the combination puts Tharisa on course to become a multi-mine operator by the end of 2027.

Karo's first phase is designed to produce 226,000oz of PGMs a year at full ramp-up, which would lift Tharisa's total output to just under 400,000oz a year. Peel Hunt has estimated that the project could add $250m to annual EBITDA, compared with Tharisa's trailing five-year average of $180m. The next test is construction: Tharisa must now deliver the mine on budget in a jurisdiction where investors have just charged it a double-digit coupon for the privilege.

Sources

• Miningmx: Tharisa seals $300m Karo Platinum funding, 11 Sept 2026
• Miningmx: Tharisa to raise $300m bond for Karo Platinum, 02 Sept 2026

Photo: Chromitite rock from the Great Dyke of Zimbabwe, the layered intrusion that hosts the Karo Platinum project. James St. John, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.