Bernard Swanepoel

YOU have to wonder how Bernard Swanepoel gets away with it at the various investment conferences he chairs for Resources 4 Africa. Over the years he has called Sir Mick Davis “an arsehole”; has termed Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union president Joseph Mathunjwa “a shit-stirrer of note”; and has pilloried mines minister Gwede Mantashe for being late for his address or for not pitching at all. His abrasive treatment of Mantashe is probably the most notable given how notoriously touchy ANC politicians are and how top mining industry executives go out of their way to not antagonise Mantashe.

Swanepoel also routinely bullies his speakers and asks them the kind of uncomfortable questions that they would rather avoid. Outside of his conference duties, Swanepoel chairs some interesting business propositions through his To The Point investment company such as Manganese Metal Company. MMC refines ore at its Mpumalanga province base, but it also aims to develop a super-rich product – high-purity manganese sulphate monohydrate – that can be sold directly to battery makers. This is the kind of high-value beneficiation the South African government craves.

So Swanepoel has just cause to lament the ‘all stick, no carrot’ approach of Mantashe in wanting to tax the chrome ore industry as a means of incentivising local downstream industry. Swanepoel also chairs a new private equity fund called Bokamoso Gold, fronted by Billy Mawasha, former head of AngloGold Ashanti’s South African mines. Bokamoso’s aspiration is to buy non-core gold mines from some of the country’s largest miners and reinvest – pretty much as Swanepoel did when he first started out at Harmony Gold.