According to the company filing, Froneman acquired more than 71,000 shares on November 2 priced at R48.7005.

The South Africa-based company separately has an odd-lot offer underway as part of plans to tidy up its share registry, with about half its 30,000 shareholders holding about 0.05% of its stock.

Sibanye-Stillwater also last week announced S&P Global Ratings had upgraded its issuer credit rating from BB- to B+ with a stable outlook.

CFO Charl Keyter said on November 4 the upgrade reflected the "significant" improvement in the company's operating and financial position.

"Despite considerable operational disruptions and other challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic earlier this year, the group delivered solid results for Q3 2020, with the production build up ahead of forecast, underpinning another record financial result," he said. 

"Production from the SA operations is expected to normalise during Q4 2020, underpinning a more robust outlook for the group, should precious metals prices sustain at current levels."

Sibanye-Stillwater also pointed out Fitch Ratings had assigned it a first-time issuer credit rating of BB with a stable outlook in August.

The Fitch Ratings report published on November 2 noted that "the IDR reflects a robust financial profile with forecast funds from operations gross leverage comfortably below 1x in the medium term, and strong demand fundamentals of palladium and rhodium in the next decade", Sibanye-Stillwater said.

Its shares (JSE: SSW) are trading close to a one-year high of R58.42.

They closed up 6% on Friday to R56.83, capitalising it at R166.2 billion (US$10.7 billion).