Mining boss: Platinum to become a central bank reserve asset

Central banks could turn to platinum as the next frontier of their shift to bolster reserves with precious metals in favour of the US dollar, the boss of a leading miner has predicted.

Valterra Platinum chief executive Craig Miller said that the world’s reserve banks are increasingly likely to view platinum as a safe haven asset, in a natural evolution of their recent preference for gold and other precious metals over the dollar and US Treasuries.

Central banks across the world have been buying up gold as part of a wider ‘de-dollarisation’ trend in which international investors have reduced their reliance on the greenback and US government bonds, preferring hard assets and rival currencies like the euro.

According to the World Gold Council, central banks have on average bolstered their gold reserves to the tune of 1,000 tonnes over the past four years, a sharp increase on the 500 tonnes bought over the preceding decade.

National banks are becoming increasingly fearful of the impact that a sustained period of inflation will have on the value of their dollar and US Treasury reserves, prompting a move into other reserve assets that are less vulnerable to the effects of so-called debasement.

Analysts have also suggested that non-western countries like China – which along with Turkey has spearheaded the gold stockpiling drive – have topped up their precious metal reserves in response to the US weaponising the dollar in its sanctions against Moscow in 2022.

After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the US and G7 froze nearly $300bn of Russia’s central bank reserves and cut Russian banks out of the Swift international payment system.

The rotation away from dollar-denominated assets has largely led reserve banks to add to already-existing stockpiles of gold, though some have also reportedly bolstered holdings of silver.

But speaking at a media event in London, Miller, whose firm Valterra is one of the world’s largest platinum miners, said the likes of China have been “liquidating their Treasuries position and purchasing other commodities”.

“It’s quite material where they were a number of years ago to where they are today,” he added. “And I think you’ll continue to see that and that then flow through into platinum being considered as part of that precious metal suite.”

Valterra caps off platinum-rated first year

Miller said the trend could act as yet another tailwind for the metal, the spot price of which more than doubled in value over the course of 2025 thanks to growing industrial demand. Platinum is a core component of both combustion engine cars and the batteries of electric vehicles, and is becoming an increasingly popular material for jewellery. Palladium, which Valterra also mines, rose by 80 per cent over 2025.

The mining boss’s remarks came as Valterra marked its first full year on the London Stock Exchange, having been spun out of Anglo American as part of the FTSE 100 giant’s root and branch restructuring.

Shares in the platinum specialist, which is dual listed in London and its domestic market Johannesburg, have risen by some 87 per cent since its debut in June 2025, buoyed by the re-rating of platinum prices that coincided with its move to become an standalone company. The near-doubling of the group’s stock price means the firm has bucked the well-documented struggles faced by many of the London bourse’s new entrants.

Almost all of the London Stock Exchange’s 2025 debutants, including the likes of mid-sized lender Shawbrook and tinned goods maker Princes, are down substantially on their IPO price, amid struggles to attract fresh capital against a years-long backdrop of outflows from UK funds.

“I’m free to say that… we had the rerating of prices for various reasons when we went independent, and that certainly then helped us,” Miller told City AM in an interview. “But from a from a company perspective, we’ve really driven that operational excellence piece too, to showcase the value that we see within the business, and that we delivered on a number of those opportunities in the second half of last year continue to do that into 2026.”

Valterra declared its first-ever special dividend in February at an update branded “a very strong set of results” by RBC Capital Markets. Miller has also orchestrated a round of sweeping organisation changes, which he said had allowed the former Anglo subsidiary to find some $50bn (£37.8m) of efficiencies.