25 June 2004
	SA's Top 20 Companies 14 NORTHAM PLATINUM Total score: 54,8 Historic score: 42 FM's score: 63

It's salutary to remember that for years Northam Platinum was regarded as one of the nails in the coffin of the old Gold Fields SA group. Even in the late 1990s, you could have bought any number of shares at R2 or less. Today, though still tiny compared with the giant Anglo Platinum, Impala and Lonmin, it's a major operating unit in the Mvelaphanda group (see above). Annual production is 330 000 oz of precious metals, with reserves of 11,3m oz and a total reserve of 20,3m oz, so that implies an assured life of at least 30 years and probably much longer.