LETTER: Zero conception of how great firms are built

I refer to Moferefere Lekorotsoana’s article (“BHP’s bid for Anglo is a chance for an economic reset,” May 2). For the record, Anglo American shares have been majority owned by foreigners since its day one, and at the time of the merger with BHP, Billiton was a sub-lightweight. 

Lekorotsoana may be “chief of staff at the mineral resources & energy ministry”, but he lives in a dreamland where great companies are built not by the brilliance, far-sightedness and courage of their directors and senior executives but by the suffering of the labour force.

In his world, the wealthy and institutions invest in a company's shares not to grow their investment but for some feelings of socialist altruism: “It is unthinkable that any reasonable South African with an interest in the country’s economy and future development would be excited by BHP’s bid for Anglo.”

Not even the long-suffering shareholders?

This is the ridiculous reaction of a worker-socialist empathiser who reveals absolutely zero understanding of how great companies are built. Or how they are destroyed by people like him. Zero mining rights were granted by his “ministry” in a year of 2,500 applications. No wonder the SA mining industry is facing extinction.

Ryckard Blake
Via BusinessLIVE

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