Liberty Coal has been provided with a copy of a media release dated 8 May 2025 titled “Mantengu files criminal complaint against JSE executives, Moti and Gupta associates: subpoenas FSCA over alleged share manipulation concerns” and a 19-page pdf document titled “Summary of Criminal Complaint”. This information was communicated to Liberty Coal’s legal advisors by a journalist around 8pm on 8 May 2025.
Liberty Coal has since had several requests by various journalists for comments on the contents of these documents. In the limited time available, and having read the various allegations made by Mr Miller, Liberty Coal’s position, simply and briefly, is that Mr Miller, the CEO of Mantengu, is a delusional fantasist who has, for what can at its kindest only be ascribed to some form of unhinged narcissism, allowed his personal failings in that position to lead him down a rabbit-hole of baseless allegations concerning Mantengu’s parlous share performance. Perhaps he needs to seek appropriate medical advice, support or supervision for his condition.
Mr Miller, on behalf of Mantengu, seemingly solely based on inferences he has chosen to draw without a shred of factual evidence, has however chosen to make far-reaching and defamatory allegations not merely of untoward but criminal conduct by various parties, including Liberty Coal, which can cause serious financial and reputational harm to those he has targeted. Liberty Coal, and no doubt others, will be seeking full redress in law from both him personally and Mantengu for such harm. Regrettably, it will ultimately also be the shareholders in Mantengu that suffer when Mr Miller’s delusional fantasies are proven to be just that.
Mr Miller and/or Mantengu furthermore claim to have lodged a formal criminal complaint against what is said to be a syndicate “fronted” by, among others, Liberty Coal but has provided no further details in that regard. By leaking his alleged criminal complaint to the media, he attempts to both bypass and pre-empt legal due process, seemingly without proper or any care for the consequences of his conduct.
Simply put, Liberty Coal, as the owner of the Optimum Colliery coal mining complex, neither trades in nor mines chrome, has no interest in Mantengu, its business or Mr Miller, and before Mr Miller during 2024 chose to develop his current fiction to explain the poor performance of Mantengu’s share price, was not even aware of its existence. Certainly, either then or now, it has had no interest in its shares, share price or business activities.
It is apparent to Liberty Coal that Mr Miller is perfectly capable on his own, without any involvement of Liberty Coal, to ruin Mantengu’s business, and to destroy any remaining shareholder value if simply left to his own devices.
Mr Miller’s delusional fantasies boil down to the fact that he believes that Mantengu’s announcement of its intended acquisition of Blue Ridge should have been viewed positively by the market, resulting in its share price – then c.R140/share – increasing. He is now left clutching at straws and blaming the world, as since Mantengu acquired Blue Ridge its share price has steadily declined to a recent low of c.0.45 cents.
It is clear from a cursory look at Mantengu’s historic share price and traded volumes that the market has no similar belief in either Mantengu’s management, its business strategy or both.
Much is made by Mantengu of Mr Bester’s and/or Liberty Coal’s apparent desire to acquire Blue Ridge, a failed platinum and PGM mine previously owned by Ridge Mining and which ultimately ended up in Sibanye’s hands. A simple check with Sibanye would have confirmed to him that Liberty Coal, having initially expressed interest in Blue Ridge as a potential acquisition by SEAM to bolster its working asset portfolio, formed the view in May 2023 that it was not financially viable. As such Liberty Coal has had no interest in the Blue Ridge project, directly or indirectly, ever since.
Liberty Coal will afford Mr Miller and Mantengu the opportunity until close of business on Monday 12 May 2025 to formally and publicly retract its allegations and tender an apology to Liberty Coal. The allegations against Mr Bester are being defended by him in his personal capacity. As indicated above, Liberty Coal intends shortly instituting such further legal actions against Mr Miller and Mantengu for defamation, including appropriate damages, an urgent interdict to stop further defamatory comments being made and crimen injuria, as it has been advised.
