The future of Anglo American has been thrown into uncertainty by Vedanta’s purchase of 13% of Anglo’s shares, which has given rise to speculation that Vedanta would like to take over Anglo’s South African iron-ore, coal and platinum mines. The Indian company used its Volcan Investments vehicle to buy shares in Anglo after an earlier informal rapprochement failed. Vedanta’s public display of interest points to Anglo possibly being dismembered in its centenary year. Vedanta, which bought Anglo’s zinc assets for $1 338-million in May 2010, achieved full payback two years later through decisive underground and near-pit mining. It is now managing to achieve what both Anglo and Gold Fields failed to do before it – build a zinc mine at Gamsberg, in the Northern Cape, which has been 40 years in the making.