Anglo American and its Corporate Citizenship Programme

Anglo American, which is comprised of various subsidiaries, joint ventures and associates, is one of the world’s largest corporations within the mining and natural resource sectors (AMVESCAP, 2005; Anglo American, 2004b). The corporation has significant interests in a range of products including gold, platinum, diamonds, coal, base and ferrous metals, industrial minerals and forest products. The corporation was founded in 1917 by Sir Ernest Oppenheimer in order to exploit South Africa’s gold reserves (Anglo American, 2005f). Business interests within the Southern African region grew in subsequent years: Anglo became the largest shareholder in De Beers; the company instigated development of the Zambian copperbelt and became involved in the exploitation of platinum group ores in South Africa. Further business and geographical diversification followed in subsequent decades as the company built businesses or made acquisitions within the coal, steel and paper industries. The company also developed interests in chemicals, construction, newspapers and financial services. From the mid-late 1990s, accelerating after 1999, considerable corporate restructuring was undertaken including the sale of non resource-based businesses and the ‘unravelling many of the cross holdings which had previously characterised many leading South African corporations’. Thus, various subsidiaries were bought out and operational functions within De Beers were streamlined.