Building A New SA Mining Giant

Masimong Group has an appetite for expansion, recently having struck deals with Anglo American. But it won’t stop there.

- David McKay

Mike Teke, chairman of Masimong Group Holdings, is not wanting for ambition.Masimong Group’s 25% stake in Seriti Resources, the company that last week successfully bid R2.3bn for Anglo American’s Eskom-dedicated thermal coal mines, could be the beginning of something significant in SA mining. “We want to build something really big in the league of Anglo. We want to create a mining champion,” he said in an interview with finweek at his Illovo offices.

Teke is joined in Seriti by Sandile Zungu, executive chairman of Zungu Investments, and Thebe Investment Corporation and Community Investment Holdings Project. Zungu has been invested in SA mining since 2003 when, as head of African Vanguard Resources, he bought a 26% stake in Harmony Gold’s Doornkop South project for R1.3bn. Zungu later went on to establish Zungu Investments Company or Zico, which is the entity that has taken a 25% stake in Seriti. In addition to the Harmony Gold mine, it bought an interest in Rockwell Diamonds and was the lead investor in the Micawber consortium that took a share in Dominion, the failed uranium start-up in Neal Froneman’s Uranium One.

As for Community Investment Holdings, it is a R20bn-a-year business invested in mining, logistics and infrastructure as well as power and energy, which is co-owned by Anna Mokgokong. Mokgokong, who will be chairwoman of Seriti, is married to Pius Mokgokong, whose company Liketh Investments has two coal supply agreements (CSAs) with Eskom.