Implats was formed in 1966 as a subsidiary of Union Corporation, which established a platinum mine in Rustenburg with an initial capacity of 100,000 oz per year.

[7] On 26 January 1973, Bishopsgate Platinum Limited, of which Implats was a wholly owned subsidiary, was listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE).

[14] The strike, the longest in the history of South Africa, ended in late June 2014 when the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) signed a  three-year settlement deal with Impala Platinum and other platinum mine owners, which saw workers earning less than R 12,500 get a wage increase of R 1,000 ($95) per month for two years and R 950 ($90) per month in the third year.

[citation needed] In October 2019, Implats announced it would acquire the outstanding shares in Canadian-based North American Palladium Limited for $758 million.

Since August 2018, Impala Platinum has been led by company directors Nico Muller (CEO) and Meroonisha Kerber (CFO).

[26] In 2020, the CEO of Impala Rustenburg, Mark Munroe was arrested for recalling employees too early, in violation of South Africa's Covid-19 lockdown restrictions.

For his decision to reopen the mines, Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, Gwede Mantashe became the target of the National Union of Mineworkers.

[33][34][35] The killing of two miners was reported in the South African media as a central reason for the breakdown in trust within the union amongst workers.

According to the Bench Marks Foundation, the violence erupted against a backdrop of a lack of employment opportunities for local youth, squalid living conditions, unemployment and growing inequalities.

Impala Platinum declared the strike "illegal" and fired 13.000 workers that had participated, almost half of 30.000 employed in the town.

The GDP of South Africa contracted in the first quarter of 2014, pulled down by the steepest drop in mining production (25% of which 19% was directly attributable to the strike) in 50 years.