PREFACE
PREFACE
THIS IS THE story of 25 years in the life of a gold mining company - a mere blink in history's eye. Yet it is a period so rich in drama and incident that it is almost as if a lifetime and more has been compressed into it.
It is not, however, a conventional company history. Company histories tend to sanitise the past, glossing over blips and modifying the bumps. Thanks to the decision of the people who commissioned this book, it is licensed to be a 'warts and all' account. I can't guarantee that I have succeeded in that, but I can guarantee that I have tried. And I can confirm that not one word of it has been changed simply to protect the company's image. For better or worse, the attempt at a balanced account is my own.
It's no secret that official company announcements often conceal as much as they reveal. In writing the story of a major company, therefore, there is one rule of thumb for a writer: the more bland the official announcement, the more likely it is that it is hiding something. Some human drama, perhaps, or boardroom battle, or clash of personalities.
This is not cynicism but simple realism. Nobody expects a great enterprise to wash its dirty linen in public. The object of official statements is to inform people, not titillate them. It is not necessary to record that some new development was pushed through the board over the dead bodies of several directors. Nor is it necessary to add the words 'good riddance' to a warm valedictory message for some departing employee.
Not necessary at all - but that is to eliminate half the excitement and much of the truth of what really happens in the necessarily ruthless world of Big Business.
The exercise has been made more intriguing by three things: the fact that many company records predating the year 2000 have disappeared; that human memories are fallible; and that people's perceptions of themselves nearly always differ from the perceptions of others. Sometimes the chasm is a mile wide.
I have made no attempt to reconcile contradictory views. Readers can draw their own conclusions. Perceptions become reality even when they are not correct. They colour decisions and have a profound influence on the direction of a business enterprise. Every step away from a previous path represents, by definition, a rejection of an old idea. It cannot help but be controversial.
There is a final reason why this is not a conventional company history. Time will provide an ultimate judgment on whether Gold Fields has secured its future for another hundred years. Too much is too recent for sweeping conclusions at the moment.
But some facts are clear, even now. The company is determined to succeed. Its leadership believes it is on the right track. There is a discernible vigour in its actions and its recent annual reports present an optimistic face. As ever, it gets its vitality and sense of purpose - its weaknesses and strengths too - from the interplay between strong characters in leadership positions. Strong leaders clash; it has always been thus.
Paradoxically, progress requires harmony and team spirit on the one hand; conflict and contestation on the other. Both ingredients are crucial. The jury of history will decide whether the formula has worked. But it looks promising.
BETWEEN February 1987, when Gold Fields celebrated its centenary, and February 2012, when a considerably different company with much the same name celebrated its 125th birthday, the face of the world changed. The Berlin Wall came tumbling down, international boundaries disappeared, political philosophies died, the Cold War ended. A new (and somewhat shaky) United States of Europe emerged to challenge, tentatively, the hegemony of the United States of America. The rise of the Asian Tigers tilted the balance of global economic power. The sleeping giant of China began to stir. The continent of Africa took its first halting steps towards democracy and participation in an emerging global village. International economies lunged from recession to prosperity to global meltdown. And the rising gold price signalled dramatic economic changes.
It was as if the world abandoned its past with a single shrug to begin anew. Old threats disappeared and old loyalties died, only to be replaced by undreamt-of new terrors, alliances and opportunities.
The face of South Africa changed. Apartheid disappeared overnight though its legacy clung stubbornly. International audiences watched engrossed as the country attempted what many saw as the impossible: a nearly bloodless revolution. History could find scant record of a country where a ruling minority had relinquished power voluntarily. It brought its own triumphs and torments. Democracy turned out to be both deeply satisfying and deeply unsettling. There was reconciliation and tension; relief and frustration. Yesterday's politicians disappeared with yesterday's policies, to be replaced by politicians of a different hue and contrary agendas. Amid the inevitable turmoil of change, only one thing was crystal clear to all.
The old South Africa had gone forever.
The face of business and industry changed. Closed doors opened. Phrases and buzzwords hardly known to a previous generation crept into the official lexicon: affirmative action, black economic empowerment, equal opportunity, racism. Labour flexed new-found muscles. Men abandoned ties and suits and ultra-formality. The glass ceiling that kept women out began to lift, though not nearly fast enough.
The face of mining changed. The mining empires that clustered on the Witwatersrand had seemed impregnable for more than a century; fortresses against ill-fortune. When GFSA celebrated its centenary with unconcealed optimism, seven great gold mining companies dominated not just South Africa's economy but that of much of the globe; household names like Anglo American, Anglo-Vaal, Rand Mines, Union Corporation, General Mining, Gold Fields. Their designated meeting ground was the Gold Producers Committee of the Chamber of Mines. Here they sat in conclave to settle the direction of the industry and the prosperity of a nation, displaying a collegiality that was not always apparent in their business encounters.
By 2012, a scant quarter-century later, the scene was unrecognisable. South Africa was no longer the world's largest gold producer. New finds in other places were shifting the balance. Of the seven great gold mining houses, the most powerful of them all - Anglo American - had abandoned gold. Other big names had been swallowed up by mergers, takeovers and attrition. Only one mining house remained in something like its old form. Even then, critics said it was no longer Gold Fields but an imposter in Gold Fields livery. Was the accusation justified? We shall see.
In any event, the working environment had changed so much that it hardly mattered. Competition at home and abroad had become more intense; acquiring mining rights more problematic; keeping labour satisfied more difficult; abiding by new constraints more demanding. Searching for new sources of gold became as important as mining established ore bodies. Existing mines grew deeper as gold became more elusive. The face of danger changed too because the seething centre of the earth is a far more hostile place than its surface.
One change, in particular, was both significant and almost imperceptible. The very nature of the mining industry changed. South Africa began to lose its dependency on gold as it increasingly acquired the trappings of a modern state. Gold was still important but it was no longer central to survival. The power that the old mining barons once wielded by virtue of their control of the only real source of wealth in South Africa gradually eroded. Today mining is recognised as an important money-spinner for government - but not the only one. The balance in the country is all the better for that.
Weaving its way through the rich tapestry of mining life is the inside story of a fiercely competitive association. To call the long-standing relationship between Gold Fields of South Africa and the Anglo American Corporation a love-hate relationship is to reduce it to an absurdity. Emotive words like 'love' and 'hate' have no place in a businessman's lexicon. Words like 'suspicion' and 'respect' and 'mistrust' and 'mutual dependence' seem more appropriate, and convey better the tensions that arose between these two giants of the gold mining world as circumstances forced them to work together almost as often as they dragged them into rivalry and confrontation. So they knew harmony in their lives, but when they fought, they fought like tigers.
FOR South Africa's most historic gold mining company, Gold Fields, the last quarter-century has meant a roller-coaster ride that took it from high drama to low intrigue in breathtaking swoops. The mother company survived two desperate takeover bids in the 1980s and, 30 years later, its South African offspring fought for its life in a battle that made world headlines. Both companies spent money in Monopoly sums to secure their future and outgun their rivals.
In this blink of a historical eye, Gold Fields experienced underground tragedy and the elation of the country's biggest and most successful mine rescue. It discovered the triumph of long-term investment and the mortification of a massive gamble going awry.
It learnt, the hard way, how to cope with treachery and deception, and how to return the compliment. It survived a merger that brought with it long knives, retrenchments and bitterness. It faced 4 000 angry workers marching on its headquarters and an outbreak...
