A general approach for the preparation of dinuclear η 5 - and η 6 -cyclic hydrocarbon platinum group metal complexes, viz. [(η 6 -arene) 2 Ru 2 (NN∩NN)Cl 2 ] 2+ (arene = C 6 H 6 , 1; p- i PrC 6 H 4 Me, 2; C 6 Me 6 , 3), [(η 5 -C 5 Me 5 ) 2 M 2 (NN∩NN)Cl 2 ] 2+ (M = Rh, 4; Ir, 5), [(η 5 -C 5 H 5 ) 2 M 2 (NN∩NN)(PPh 3 ) 2 ] 2+ (M = Ru, 6; Os, 7), [(η 5 -C 5 Me 5 ) 2 Ru 2 (NN∩NN)(PPh 3 ) 2 ] 2+ (8) and [(η 5 -C 9 H 7 ) 2 Ru 2 (NN∩NN)(PPh 3 ) 2 ] 2+ (9), bearing the bis-bidentate ligand 1,2-bis(di-2-pyridylaminomethyl)benzene (NN∩NN), which contains two chelating di-pyridylamine units connected by an aromatic spacer, is reported. The cationic dinuclear complexes have been isolated as their hexafluorophosphate or hexafluoroantimonate salts and characterized by use of a combination of NMR, IR and UV–vis spectroscopic methods and by mass spectrometry. The solid state structure of three derivatives, [2][SbF 6 ] 2 , [3][PF 6 ] 2 and [4][PF 6 ] 2 , has been determined by X-ray structure analysis.