In it for the long haul

A century later, a streamlined Anglo American believes SA still offers much opportunity for further growth and investment

One wonders what went through Ernest Oppenheimer’s mind as he went to the UK and US during World War 1 to raise capital for a new mining investment company in SA, an exploration hotspot at the time following the discovery of diamonds and gold in the latter half of the 1800s.

A diamond trader by profession, Oppenheimer, the scion of a relatively wealthy German merchant family, already owned some gold and coal properties, but — much like SA’S mining companies today – needed offshore capital to develop these resources.

From the start, Anglo American was a profitable venture, Duncan Innes wrote in his 1984 book

Anglo. Its rich mines allowed it to ride out problems — including the strikes of 1920 and 1922 — better than some others, he wrote. One of the struggling mining companies was De Beers, and with the support of foreign backers, Anglo American was able to acquire effective control of the diamond miner at the start of the Depression in 1929.

The acquisition of De Beers was one of the early examples of Oppenheimer’s genius when it came to spotting — and successfully exploiting — opportunities, in good times and bad. Using the financial muscle afforded to it by its mining operations, Anglo American invested in SA’S booming manufacturing sector in the 1930s; the new gold fields on the West Rand and in the then Orange Free State in the 1950s; and the rapidly