Anglo power play for black bosses
But group may not have enough assets left to make it work
● After wheeling and dealing with some of the most prominent black business people who have emerged over the past two decades, Anglo American says it will now be open to selling some of its assets to black members of management.
Norman Mbazima, deputy chairperson of Anglo American SA, described the idea as “lovely”, but admitted that it would be difficult to carry out as the group no longer holds the same number of assets it used to.
“I would be favourably disposed to that side,” he said, adding that Anglo felt there was no major imperative to do anything big in the ownership area.
“Way back in 2004, we first said we need to put an employee share ownership scheme into each of our areas . . . and that has been quite successful,” he said.
At the time, “we didn’t have senior black people who were qualified in experience. The difficulty right now is that we don’t have a lot of assets left. We’ve got a pool of assets that we are happy with, we would want to run with, so it would be on a case-by-case basis.”
Mbazima said Anglo’s general level of ownership transformation is about 29%, while some of its businesses are around 60% black-owned.
The mining conglomerate has built up a considerable level of black leadership in its South African businesses that could step into the management of any company that is spun off.
Andile Sangqu, executive head of Anglo American SA and vice-president of the Minerals Council of SA says that it has taken time to develop black leadership at Anglo and not just indulge in tokenism “to put people in positions if they can’t do the work”.
One lesson the group has learned over the years was that having black entrepreneurs in a minority holding just around a table once each quarter was not sustainable.
“Eventually those black entrepreneurs would like to sit somewhere, control and run something and that is the right thing to happen,” Sangcu says.
“And as we go forward, we will have less entrepreneurs who are minority holders and [rather those who] go off and run something.”
Since the dawn of South Africa’s democracy, the company has undertaken more than 40 empowerment transactions, collectively worth more than R71bn.
Anglo’s current market capitalisation is R458bn.
But Anglo’s empowerment deals have had mixed outcomes, comprising notable successes but also some disastrous ventures.
One of its less successful deals was with African Mining Group, which took a 34% stake in mining company Johannesburg Consolidated Investments from Anglo.
Now-slain executive Brett Kebble and his cohorts would go on to defraud the group of billions of rands, an example of empowerment gone wrong.
Black-owned Exxaro Resources, one of the largest coal miners in the country, is a creation out of some of Anglo American’s assets.
It has taken time to develop black leadership at Anglo and not just indulge in tokenism
Andile Sangcu
Executive head of Anglo American SA