 | |
| Company type | Public |
|---|---|
| Industry | Mining |
| Founded | 1887 [1] |
| Defunct | 1988 |
| Fate | Acquired |
| Successor | Hanson |
| Headquarters | London, England [1] |
Key people | Rudolph Agnew (Chairman) |
Consolidated Gold Fields was a British gold-mining company. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index until it was acquired by Hanson in 1988.
Consolidated Gold Fields of South Africa was founded in 1887 and incorporated in London to fund the newly discovered gold reefs in the Transvaal. [1] By 1900 it had already started to diversify outside South Africa. [1] After 1945 it acquired mines in the United States and Australia. [1] Until the 1970s, it was predominantly a mining finance house receiving income from passive investments. In 1970 A.R.O. Williams O.B.E, who was then Managing Director, retired. [2]
After the 1970s it transformed itself into natural resource group concentrating on a relatively small number of minerals. [1] The company had three major wholly owned subsidiaries: Amalgamated Roadstone Corporation, Gold fields Corporation and ARC America, both in the United States. [1]
By the late 1980s it was considering withdrawing from South Africa completely. [3] It was then the subject of an acrimonious, hostile and unsuccessful take-over bid by Minorco early in 1988. [4]
Consolidated Gold Fields played a key role in ending apartheid in South Africa; Michael Young, the company's public affairs director embarked on the controversial course of initiating secret discussions between the South African government and the African National Congress at Mells Park House in the company's estate in Somerset. This ultimately resulted in the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990 and the handover of power to majority rule: the events are described in book The Fall of Apartheid by Robert Harvey and the 2009 television film Endgame . [5]
The Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 Index, also called the FTSE 100 Index, FTSE 100, FTSE, or, informally, the "Footsie", is a stock market index of 100 of the most highly capitalised blue chip companies listed on the London Stock Exchange.
Placer Dome Inc. was a large mining company specializing in gold and other precious metals, with corporate headquarters in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
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Anglo American plc is a British multinational mining company with headquarters in London, England. It is the world's largest producer of platinum, with around 40% of world output, as well as being a major producer of diamonds, copper, nickel, iron ore, polyhalite and steelmaking coal. The company has operations in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America.
Carletonville is a town in Gauteng and the seat of the Merafong City Local Municipality in the West Rand District Municipality in Gauteng, South Africa, just north of the richest gold-mining area in the world. At 3,749 m, Western Deep Levels holds the record for the world's deepest gold mine.
Lonmin plc, formerly Lonrho plc, was a British producer of platinum group metals operating in the Bushveld Complex of South Africa. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange. Its registered office was in London, and its operational headquarters were in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Heidelberg Materials UK is a British-based building materials company, headquartered in Maidenhead. Previously known as Hanson UK, the company has been a subsidiary of the German company HeidelbergCement since August 2007, and was formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange and a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
Gordon R. Parker is a business executive notable for leading the Gold Fields unit of Toronto, Ontario, Canada-based Iamgold corporation. He was chairman of Newmont Mining Corporation which was a firm involved with exploring, acquiring, and managing gold metals. Parker is a director at corporations including Caterpillar; Gold Fields Limited and Phelps Dodge Corporation. Mr. Parker has been a director of Caterpillar since 1995. In 1988, when Parker was chairman and chief executive officer of Newmont Corporation, he was 52 years old.
Sir Michael Owen Edwardes was a British-South African business executive who held chairmanships at several companies - most notably motor manufacturer British Leyland in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Prior to the arrival of the European settlers in the 17th century the economy of what was to become South Africa was dominated by subsistence agriculture and hunting.
Charles W. Engelhard Jr. was an American businessman, a major owner in Thoroughbred horse racing, and a candidate in the 1955 New Jersey State Senate elections. He controlled an international mining and metals conglomerate, Engelhard, founded by his father.
Asa Resources Group is a mining company based in Johannesburg and London. According to the company's website, it is the first African-owned and African-managed business to be listed in the Resources sector of the London Stock Exchange's Alternative Investment Market. Asa was founded in 1987.
Endgame is a 2009 British film directed by Pete Travis from a script by Paula Milne, based upon the book The Fall of Apartheid by Robert Harvey. The film is produced by Daybreak Pictures and reunites Travis with Vantage Point actor William Hurt. It also stars Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jonny Lee Miller and Mark Strong. The film dramatises the final days of apartheid in South Africa. It was filmed at locations in Reading in England and Cape Town, South Africa in the first half of 2008 and was completed in December that year.
Williams Way is a tunnel through the eastern part of the Rock of Gibraltar.
John Alexander Agnew was a New Zealand mining engineer who worked with future United States president Herbert Hoover and later became chairman of Consolidated Gold Fields, the first chairman of the firm to be from a mining engineering background. In his spare time he was a noted philatelist whose collection of Chinese stamps and postal history was regarded as one of the finest of his era.
Ian David Cockerill is a geologist and mining engineer. Cockerill started his mining career in South Africa in 1975 after completing his Bachelor of Science in Geology at Chelsea College of Science and Technology. He later completed his Master of Science in Mining-Mineral Production Management at the Royal School of Mines, a Management Development Programme at the University of South Africa, and an Advanced Management Programme at Templeton College, Oxford.
Gencor Ltd was a South African based mining company. It was formed in 1980 after the merger of the General Mining and Finance Corporation and the Union Corporation. Parts of the company are now owned by Gold Fields and BHP.
C. Tennant, Sons & Company was a British merchant bank that was prominent in metals and minerals markets, and also played a key role in development of the Gulf States in their early years of independence. The firm's antecedents go back to the early 19th century. In the early 1960s it had its main offices at Harp Lane in the City of London as well as offices in New York, San Francisco, São Paulo, Lima, La Paz and Bermuda.
The Minorco SA was a mining company based in Luxembourg. It was set up by the South African Anglo American Corporation in 1987 to hold its non-African, non-diamond mining operations. Although Minorco was quoted on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange the majority of its shares were controlled by the Oppenheimer family directly and indirectly via Anglo American Corporation and its then sister company De Beers.
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