The boy from Estcourt shaking up the gold mining world

By Alec Hogg

Scratch around a little and most of us will be able to name someone famous from our youth. For me, that person is Mark Bristow, who yesterday hit the international headlines with an audacious hostile takeover bid.

He being from Estcourt (and me Newcastle), being of the same vintage we opposed each other on the cricket field in our school days and then played together at university where Bristow followed in his father's footsteps by studying geology.

Bristow survived an association with the crooked Kebbles to build gold miner Randgold Resources into a superb business. So good, in fact, that after much the bigger Barrick bought Randgold last October, it appointed the boy from Estcourt as CEO of the whole shooting match.

The friend of my youth is now pursuing an even bigger prize. If the $18bn hostile bid for Barrick's North American rival Newmont gets done, Bristow will head a $42bn global giant that dwarves all other in its field – eight times the value, for instance, of AngloGold Ashanti. Looking back, who would have known? Then again, even in those days, he always was the captain…

From Biznews community member Graham McIntosh

Gary Ralfe (b 1944) headed up deBeers.
David Williams (financial journalist whom you surely know).
Until 2014 I farmed in the district.