BizNews Edge: CEO van Heerden unpacks Afrimat's toughest six months since listing

Afrimat has been on the JSE for 20 years and has never had a half like this one. A strong rand and Iran-driven shipping costs battered its iron ore exports, the ferrochrome smelters that bought its anthracite went quiet, and the group swung to a headline loss. Yet a day after the trading update, Andries van Heerden was not in retreat. He told Alec Hogg how the old Lafarge quarries, mocked when Afrimat bought them, had kept the group afloat, why a new iron ore mine could change the maths before the year is out, and why he would say no more about the cement talks for fear of straying into insider information. He also faced the question every shareholder was asking: is this the bottom? His answer was more honest than comforting.