Global gold miner AngloGold Ashanti is looking to become an African world leader and the global gold equity of choice, company president Dr Sam Jonah said at the weekend during an event to launch the new group.
In late April, the merger of South Africa’s AngloGold and Ghana’s Ashanti Goldfields was officially concluded and the group is set to rival United States gold miner Newmont for the mantle of the world’s largest gold miner.
“For us in the gold-mining industry … 2004 has brought great promise, because it has brought about a marriage of two African giants,” Jonah said.
The launch on Saturday follows eight years after Ashanti became the first African company to list on the New York Stock Exchange and six years following the launch of AngloGold in 1998. AngloGold became the first South African company to list on the New York Stock Exchange in August 1998.
Group CEO Bobby Godsell said AngloGold has come a long way since 1997, when the South African gold industry was in “intensive care”.
“We have changed out asset base and reskilled our people,” he said at the launch.
The new group will seek to establish itself as the best gold company in the world, Godsell said.
The merger of AngloGold and Ashanti was likely to have been the largest private-sector deal seen to date in Africa and was testament to New Partnership for Africa’s Development, he added.
Looking ahead, Godsell said the new group will seek to find new gold in the countries where it currently operates but will also examine new localities, especially Asia. Jonah himself recently visited China.
Godsell likened the new group to an African fish eagle that is focused on Africa, but has wings touching all corners of the Earth.
South African Minister of Trade and Industry Mandisi Mpahlwa welcomed the formation of the new gold group, which is politically and economically located in Africa.
Mpahlwa wished the new group well on its next phase of growth and development.
AngloGold Ashanti has 25 operations in 11 countries and annual gold production of close to seven million troy ounces.
The group has one of the world’s largest gold reserves and resource bases and employs more than 62 500 people worldwide. — I-Net Bridge