Lonrho affair
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| Public company | |
| Traded as | : , JSE: LON |
| Industry | Mining |
| Founded | 1909 |
| Headquarters | London, England, UK |
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Key people
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Brian Beamish (Chairman) Ben Magara (CEO) Barrie van der Merwe (CFO) Mahomed Seedat (COO) |
| Products | Platinum Group Metals |
| Revenue | US$965 million (2014) |
| US$52 million (2014) | |
| US$(203) million (2014) | |
| Website | www.lonmin.com |
Lonmin plc, formerly the mining division of Lonrho plc, is a British producer of platinum group metals operating in the Bushveld Complex of South Africa. It is listed on the . Its registered office is in London, and its operational headquarters are in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Lonmin rose to international attention following the Marikana miners' strike in August, 2012, in which over 100 striking Lonmin employees were shot (36 killed, 78 wounded) by South African Police Service officers.
The Company was incorporated in the United Kingdom on 13 May 1909 as the London and Rhodesian Mining and Land Company Limited.
Businessman Tiny Rowland was recruited as chief executive in 1962. For many years during the second half of the twentieth century it was frequently in the news, not only due to the politically sensitive part of the world in which it had mining businesses, but also – as it strove to become a conglomerate not wholly dependent on these businesses – in a number of takeover battles, most notably for the Harrods of Knightsbridge department store.
In 1968, Lonrho acquired Ashanti Goldfields Corporation, a gold mining business in Ghana. The former Conservative minister Duncan Sandys, a director of Ashanti, became Lonrho's chairman in 1972.
Sir Angus Ogilvy, married to a member of the British royal family (Princess Alexandra), was a Lonrho director and this increased media interest in the company's affairs. Ogilvy's career ended when Lonrho was involved in a sanctions-busting scandal concerning trade with Rhodesia. Prime Minister, Edward Heath, criticised the company, describing it in the House of Commons in 1973 as "an unpleasant and unacceptable face of capitalism."
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Wikipedia