{"id":141893,"date":"2025-09-13T21:39:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T21:39:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/141893\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T21:39:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T21:39:15","slug":"anglo-teck-merger-is-end-of-an-era-for-the-company-that-dominated-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/141893\/","title":{"rendered":"Anglo Teck merger is end of an era for the company that dominated South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Teck Resources’ Highland Valley Copper Mine near Logan Lake, B.C., on Thursday. Vancouver-based Teck has reached a friendly deal to be acquired by London-based Anglo.DARRYL DYCK\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

Ernest Oppenheimer, who founded the Anglo American mining empire in 1917, became so fabulously wealthy that he would sometimes casually slip a diamond into the palms of the wives of his business friends after dinner parties at his lavish Brenthurst estate in Johannesburg.<\/p>\n

The son of a German cigar merchant, he built a sprawling network of companies in South Africa\u2019s gold reefs and diamond fields. He and his son Harry ruled the country\u2019s economy at a time when South Africa dominated the global mining sector, making Anglo American one of the world\u2019s biggest and most powerful corporations.<\/p>\n

For decades, even in the depths of the apartheid era, Anglo American Corp. was the symbol of South Africa\u2019s mining might. And then, facing new struggles and losses, it became something else: a symbol of the slow decline of the country\u2019s mineral industry as costs soared, mines closed, production dropped and investors relocated.<\/p>\n

Today the iconic Anglo American brand is on the verge of disappearing forever, merging with Teck Resources Ltd. to become a new US$50-billion entity, Anglo Teck. The new company will be headquartered in Vancouver, with most of its top executives moving to Canada.<\/p>\n

Teck agrees to be acquired by Anglo American at crucial time for Canada\u2019s minerals industry<\/a><\/p>\n

While the Teck transaction could be a lifeline for the 108-year-old company, it represents yet another setback for South Africa, whose former mining giants are increasingly focused elsewhere in the world.<\/p>\n

South Africa\u2019s political and business elites seem resigned to the latest move. The government issued no statements about it this week. Anglo had already moved its headquarters to London in 1999, spinning off its gold mines into a separate company and maintaining only a secondary listing in Johannesburg.<\/p>\n

While Anglo still controls several major assets in South Africa \u2013 including the diamond mines of De Beers and the country\u2019s biggest iron ore producer, Kumba Iron Ore \u2013 the company has long preferred to chase copper projects in Latin America, a trend that will accelerate if the merger is approved. After recently spinning off its South African platinum assets, Anglo is now seeking even to divest from De Beers itself if it can find a buyer.<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Teck Resources’ Highland Valley Copper Mine near Logan Lake, B.C. The new company will be headquartered in Vancouver, with most of its top executives moving to Canada.DARRYL DYCK\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

South Africa\u2019s state-owned Public Investment Corp., one of the biggest single shareholders in Anglo with a reported 8-per-cent stake, was actively opposed to an attempt by BHP to purchase the company last year. South African Mining Minister Gwede Mantashe strongly criticized the BHP takeover bid. But both have been muted on the latest deal, implicitly suggesting that they support the Anglo-Teck transaction.<\/p>\n

South African media have reported the Teck deal in neutral terms, seeing it as just another example in the country\u2019s marginalization in the global mining sector. \u201cThe latest deal should benefit Anglo\u2019s SA shareholders,\u201d the respected Business Day newspaper said in an editorial. \u201cBut it is another loss for mining in SA.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anglo CEO Duncan Wanblad has tried to reassure South Africans by insisting that the company has \u201can enduring commitment\u201d to the country and its \u201cnational priorities,\u201d despite the planned relocation of its headquarters to British Columbia. He pledged that the new company would include South Africans on its board and executive team, and he promised financial contributions to the country\u2019s junior mining exploration fund. He also declared that Kumba Iron Ore will remain \u201ccore and pivotal\u201d to the merged company.<\/p>\n

What does the massive Anglo Teck deal mean for the future of mining in Canada?<\/a><\/p>\n

But the reality is that South Africa\u2019s mining industry is in relentless decline, and Anglo\u2019s long history in the country is fading.<\/p>\n

Once the biggest gold producer in the world, South Africa now ranks just 12th, behind countries such as Mali and Uzbekistan, according to the World Gold Council. As a destination for mining investment, it now ranks 68th among the 82 jurisdictions covered in the latest survey of investment attractiveness by the Fraser Institute.<\/p>\n

A century ago, foreign investors were much more intrigued by South Africa\u2019s mining prospects. Ernest Oppenheimer collected capital from British and U.S. financiers, including Herbert Hoover and J.P. Morgan, to help him create Anglo American, its name reflecting the nationalities of its main funders. (He briefly contemplated calling it \u201cAfrican-American Corp.\u201d until the idea was sharply rejected by his U.S. partners.)<\/p>\n

The company soon grew into a leviathan. Ernest and Harry Oppenheimer were often listed among the world\u2019s wealthiest people. They developed lucrative gold fields in the Orange Free State and the Witwatersrand, branched into diamond and coal mines, and then sank money into steel, insurance, banks, newspapers, pulp and paper, property development, platinum, copper, uranium and iron ore. Critics called it \u201cthe Octopus.\u201d<\/p>\n

Opinion: With Anglo American at its side, Teck\u2019s mission to become a pure critical metals company takes a hit<\/a><\/p>\n

De Beers, founded by Cecil Rhodes, was acquired by Ernest Oppenheimer in the late 1920s after a protracted board battle. The Oppenheimers turned it into a global cartel, controlling the world diamond trade. In 1947, their ad agency created the slogan \u201cA Diamond is Forever\u201d \u2013 still considered the greatest marketing tagline of the 20th century \u2212 and the company soared into the stratosphere.<\/p>\n

In 1961, Anglo acquired a major Canadian company, Hudson Bay Mining, and then continued to expand internationally. By the 1980s, the Oppenheimer empire contained more than 650 companies, employed more than 800,000 people and controlled the majority of all stocks traded on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.<\/p>\n

Harry Oppenheimer was more progressive than some of his rival tycoons in South Africa. He criticized apartheid and supported the creation of trade unions at Anglo\u2019s mines. But he also benefited from apartheid, which entrenched an exploitative system of cheap labour from migrant Black mineworkers, making his mines more profitable. During a 1987 strike by a mineworkers union \u2013 led by Cyril Ramaphosa, today the President of South Africa \u2212 Anglo sacked about 45,000 labourers.<\/p>\n

After moving its headquarters to London in 1999, Anglo failed to keep pace with the world\u2019s top mining conglomerates, reflecting the decline of South Africa\u2019s mining sector. But South Africa has maintained its global influence in one key area: It provides many of the geologists, managers and executives who dominate the mining sector around the world, including in Canada.<\/p>\n

One of Canada\u2019s mining giants, Barrick Mining Corp., is headed by a South African CEO, Mark Bristow. And if the latest merger is approved, Anglo Teck\u2019s CEO will be Mr. Wanblad \u2013 another South African.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Teck Resources’ Highland Valley Copper Mine near Logan Lake, B.C., on Thursday. Vancouver-based…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,45,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-141893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}