Page 10 - 100 years of Anglo American

Julian Ogilvie Thompson and Harry Oppenheimer look at the De Beers Centenary Diamond in 1991
MINING’S

great shapeshifters

From the Oppenheimers to Mark Cutifani, the miner has

gone from strength to strength, writes Jade Davenport

nglo American has had many His relinquishing of the reins of control not company into South Africa’s most successful
watersheds over the past 100 only effectively brought to an end the conglomerate, whose shareholding and
years, but there is no doubt Oppenheimer family’s 65-year-long dynastic influence spanned across the entirety of the
that chief among them was domination of Anglo American, but also country’s economic, social and political
the moment Harry altered the very nature of the company from spheres. At the time of Harry’s retirement, the
A Oppenheimer, son of the what had been a family-run business to a company was worth $15 billion and the shares
company’s founder, Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, more generically corporate executive-led firm. of the companies it directly controlled
and group chairperson since 1956, officially Under Oppenheimer leadership, it had accounted for more than half of all shares
retired in January 1983. grown from a small East Rand gold mining traded on the JSE.
10 ANGLO AMERICAN 100 YEARS