Listed Mining Companies
The big South African-UK banking axis, Absa Capital-Barclays, spread horror stories at the Mining Indaba on South Africa’s defaulting black economic-empowerment (BEE) mining transactions, warning that “unpleasant” steps need to be taken to avoid a “subprimelike string of bank write-downs, or worse”. The voice of Absa Capital-Barclays was presented by Cliff Zephyrine, who described 2009 as “the year of reckoning for BEE mining deals in South Africa” and said that he wanted to avoid the “spectre of BEE bankruptcy” becoming a widespread reality. Zephyrine equated doing nothing with playing Russian roulette. “It’s time for collective engagement for the sake of sustainable black ownership,” Zephyrine said, adding that Absa-Barclays would propose hedging as the solution.
