Patrice Motsepe: mining billionaire on soccer and safety

Mining-made money news from South Africa, just to prove it is not all power failures.  From the Globe & Mail (I quote and shorten):

Three South African names appear on this year’s Forbes World Billionaireslist: Nicky Oppenheimer, Anton Rupert and mining magnate Patrice Motsepe — this country’s first black billionaire.  Born in Soweto and then trained as a lawyer, Motsepe became the first black partner at Johannesburg’s Bowman Gilfillan law firm before starting a low-level contracting business doing mine work, Forbes.  Motsepe bought low-producing gold-mine shafts in 1994 and turned them profitable “using lean, mean management style”.  Since then he has built $875-million mining conglomerate African Rainbow Minerals, with interests in a wide swathe of minerals: precious metals (platinum and its cousins), nickel, chrome, iron, manganese and coal.

Patrice Motsepe picture and full details are available at this link.  He is a  soccer man and owner of the local soccer team: an activity that gets him criticised, particularly when he fired a popular coach.  The Mail  & Guardian comments:

This was the latest in a series of decisions that prove that Motsepe should, at most, remain a benevolent benefactor with a hands-off approach to a club instead of embarrassing himself and the fans with his displays of childishness. He is bad for football.  Another of Motsepe’s oddities is that, although he has no demonstrable knowledge of the finer aspects of the game, he seems to believe that pouring so much money into the club somehow qualifies him to have half-time “pep talks” with the players.  The result has been that the players have become paranoid about losing.

Talking about five people killed in an explosion at the Assmang Smelter, fifty  percent owned by African Rainbow Minerals, Patrice Motsepe said: “Workers’ lives could not be sacrificed “in the name of profit or making money.”  In the company’s annual report, Motsepe says of Harmony: “In terms of safety, the recent shaft incident at Elandsrand, which resulted in the heroic rescue of some 3,000 employees was a stark reminder that we must re-focus and continue to improve on our health and safety standards at all times.” 

Nevertheless, African Rainbow Minerals is making money:  From Bloomberg.com:

African Rainbow Minerals Ltd., a producer of coal and other minerals in South Africa, said first- half profit rose 55 percent on higher iron-ore and platinum sales. Net income in the six months ended Dec. 31 rose to 870 million rand ($113 million), or 4.08 rand a share, from 560 million rand, or 2.67 rand, a year earlier.  Record prices for raw materials from coal to platinum will help the company, controlled by Patrice Motsepe, the richest black South African, offset any decline in production resulting from the country’s national power shortage, Rainbow said. Sales of manganese ore rose 37 percent in the period, while iron-ore sales increased 18 percent.

Browsing through the InfoMine companies database is like a trip down memory lane.  Here are the names of some of the companies owned by African Rainbow Minerals (formerly Anglovaal):  Dwarsrivier, Kalplats, Beeshoek,  Nkomati, and Modikwa.   Still that is but the poetry of names of places we will never see again.  For the world now goes to others–and they are well skilled to take it and grow it.  Hamba Gashle.