Billy Mawasha
CEO: Bokamoso Gold
‘If you look at the current owners – Sibanye, Harmony, DRDGold ... all of them have assets which are not getting capital’
THE astonishing increase in the gold price in 2025 has generated major industry optimism, but Billy Mawasha says he saw the metal’s potential when it was trading at $1,500 per ounce – more than five years ago. “Where was the potential in this perceived sunset industry?” he asked. Bokamoso Gold’s conclusion is that it’s in those unloved assets held by existing producers. There’s nothing new in this approach. The Randgold & Exploration school of miners led by legends such as Neal Froneman made a lucrative career breathing new life into old mines.
What’s different about Bokamoso is that it is looking at a time when the scope for ‘value’ has never been as great; not since the 1980s at any rate. Mawasha, a former AngloGold Ashanti executive, is backed by Bernard Swanepoel, another Randgold school graduate, Swanepoel’s long-standing business partner Clinton Halsey and Anton Taljaard, a former resources banker. Mawasha says Bokamoso is talking to mainstream bankers for debt funding as well as possible equity raises. “We’ve been engaging with a few different family offices, different sources of potential equity partners. We’ll obviously put our own money in as well,” he said in an interview.
Speaking speculatively, one investment for Bokamoso might be Sibanye-Stillwater’s Mpumalanga mine, Burnstone. Sibanye-Stillwater CEO Richard Stewart said last year his firm was looking for partners. Burnstone was once run by Swanepoel’s former sidekick at Harmony Gold, Ferdi Dippenaar, when the gold price was less persuasive. We wait in anticipation.
LIFE OF BILLY
Mawasha has worked at some of the most iconic mining firms in his more than 20 years in the industry, including stints at De Beers, AngloGold Ashanti, Kumba Iron Ore and Rio Tinto, where he was country head for South Africa. He was also MD of Rio Tinto’s Richards Bay Minerals. He serves on the boards of Impala Platinum and Exxaro Resources and has been a long-standing member of the World Economic Forum and a trustee of the Palaeontological Scientific Trust. For the past six years he has been CEO of Kolobe Nala Investment Company.
