Anglo confronts messy divorce in miner’s South Africa birthplace

In 1917, Ernest Oppenheimer met with South African general and soon-to-be Prime Minister Jan Smuts to seek his blessing for a new mining company called Anglo American. Smuts wanted one assurance, the company was there for the long haul. Anglo, along with its sister company De Beers, made Oppenheimer a billionaire and his descendants one of Africa’s richest families. The company became South Africa’s biggest, a conglomerate once spanning brewing, publishing and gold mining. Now a century later, Anglo is trying to cut many of the ties with the country where it all began.