On 29 December 2001, Sean Gilbertson and Finn Behnken departed Upington in two Cessna 172 Skyhawk aeroplanes, aiming for Keetmanshoop, Namibia.1 The planes were registered with flight schools in South Africa and both men were keen amateur pilots. Gilbertson and Behnken were both twenty-nine years old and fast-rising within the field of mining finance, though both had actually studied mining engineering at the University of the Witwatersrand in the early 1990s. Their planes were loaded with cameras, supplies, friends, girlfriends, beer and brandy, and they carried the gate key to Gilbertson’s recently acquired property – Norechab Farm in the far south of Namibia’s Karasburg District. It would be the first of many properties he would buy in this region. From Keetmanshoop, the group refuelled their Cessnas and flew the remaining three hundred kilometres or so to an airstrip at Tantalite Valley mine, located between neighbouring farms Umeis and Kinderzitt. From there, the group took a short drive north-west to Norechab Farm.
Sean was born in South Africa, the son of mining magnate Brian Gilbertson, and his youth was impacted by his father’s rise within apartheid South Africa’s large, yet politically isolated, mining sector. Brian Gilbertson had graduated with a degree in maths and physics in the mid-1960s, at a time when apartheid-era military conscription was escalating. ‘I was given the choice of going to boot camp on the South African veld, or to Paris to work on a missile system. It was a tough decision’, Gilbertson said, ‘but I chose the lights of Paris’.2 The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) posted him with the French Institute for Rocket Research, where the two governments were engaged in the development of a surface-to-air missile system. France was one of the few countries still selling arms to apartheid South Africa.3 In 1970, Brian was hired as a mining engineer for the Johannesburg Consolidated Investment Company (JCI Ltd), which was mining a large number of gold, uranium and platinum deposits in today’s Gauteng province. JCI also owned significant shares in De
In 1988, Brian Gilbertson was hired by the mining behemoth, Gencor Ltd, and was eventually promoted to the position of executive chairman. Gilbertson was a different kind of mining titan to most others in South African history. Though he certainly possessed the knowledge to focus on improving production and mining strategies, his legacy is that of a globally-minded dealmaker and negotiator. Gilbertson downsized Gencor and sold off or unbundled unproductive assets, and after South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994, Gencor acquired the aluminium assets of Royal Dutch Shell, as well those of its subsidiary, Billiton.5
If I want to expand bauxite production in Western Australia to feed a new smelter I want to build in Mozambique, or if I want to be a serious contender for the privatisation of Venezuela’s aluminium operations, I need access to international capital markets … We have no intention of acting as nurse maids to dying operations. We intend this to be a world-class business, and [we] will seek out opportunities.8
These years were a time when the public face of mining executives was changing, from providing an efficient means to remove minerals from the earth to one of global jet-setting, mergers, acquisitions and complex financial instruments. In her book, Liquidated, anthropologist Karen Ho posits that deregulation and economic transformations during the 1980s and 1990s brought about a ‘shareholder value revolution’ within the modern corporate world.11 This represented a new conception of efficiency. It was no longer grounded in labour or industrial productivity but rather in the quantity and magnitude of ‘deals’ which would reap the largest short-term dividends for shareholders, even if a short-term rise in stock price did not correspond with long-term corporate growth. The 1990s witnessed the departure of the paternalistic ‘welfare capitalism’ that was common during the mid-century and the arrival of the notion of a corporation as ‘synonymous with its shareholders’.12 For Wall Street and mining finance alike, labour redundancies and the local effects of liquidation were no longer a concern for a company or its executives. Although Sean’s father may have helped found a mining empire, it was not an empire bound any longer to any geographical space, nation-state, particular commodity or social or community obligations. Brian Gilbertson’s deals brought profits and
Sean was most likely aware that it could be his responsibility to continue the family mining legacy, and he enrolled in 1991 for a degree in Mining Engineering at the University of the Witwatersrand. He moved in circles of young people in similar circumstances, befriending fellow South African Finn Behnken and the Namibian Heye Daun, both of whom were enrolled in a similar programme. Perhaps more significantly, he began dating Sabine Severin, daughter of the Danish mining magnate, Steen Severin.13 Severin and his wife, Franka, had recently acquired Tantalite Valley mine in southern Namibia, which was situated on Umeis and Kinderzitt farms. The mine was partly closed owing to the low price of tantalum oxide.
Sabine recalled that although the mine itself was inactive, her family would take holidays to Tantalite Valley from the late 1980s to the 1990s, by which time her father had also established a residence there. In the early days, they would stay in a caravan, tents or in the old mine housing. The Severins kept Yamaha motorbikes on the property, using them to explore, let loose and relax. ‘It’s just the stuff you dream of’, she recollected, ‘you know, having space, waking up and seeing a klipspringer grazing, and it’s on your land!’14 In 1992, Sabine brought her new boyfriend Sean to Tantalite Valley for a holiday. ‘It was my first ever trip to Namibia’, Sean recalled, ‘and I was blown away – I loved it’.15 During subsequent trips, they were joined by fellow students, Finn Behnken and Heye Daun, and like many who witness the incontrovertible beauty of southern Namibia – the present authors included – they fell in love with the landscape, and they sought any excuse to travel there as often as possible.
Sean Gilbertson and Sabine Severin stopped dating around 1994, when their studies were finished, but they stayed in touch, meeting up on trips to Tantalite Valley mine with their university mates over the following few years. Sean recollected that he and his friends had a dream of owning land in the area one day, but that day would not come for some time. Sean left Johannesburg in 1995 and took a job with Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt and thereafter with its newly acquired subsidiary, Morgan, Grenfell & Co. At both locations, he worked on project finance relating to power stations and infrastructure, gradually deepening his knowledge and connections in the world of mining finance more
Sean moved to London on 8 July 1996, and about two years later he, Sabine and a few other university mates founded the company Global Coal Market Ltd (alias globalCOAL), which sought to build on internet trading to financialise, standardise and popularise the trading of thermal and metallurgical coal futures, as well as to facilitate the delivery of physical shipments.17 Apart from collecting a significant amount of data on coal transactions around the world, globalCOAL set up a Standard Coal Trading Agreement (SCoTA) which specifies and defines the quality of coal produced at major hubs.18 This data includes, inter alia, calorific value basis (in kcal/kg), ash content, sulphur content, Hardgrove grindability index and moisture content, geographically divided for each major thermal-coal distribution hubs, like Richard’s Bay in South Africa and Puerto Bolivar in Colombia, as well as for metallurgical/coking-coal production in Newcastle, Australia.19
As a carbon-based substance, not all coal is the same. Depending on its intended use – even beyond the coking/thermal divide – different qualities are required if coal is to be used for electricity production. The effectiveness of coal cannot be measured merely on the basis of tonnage. In this way, globalCOAL facilitated the exchange of production data, sales data and projections such that the financialisation of the thermal coal sector could mirror that of other commodities, like those on the London Metals Exchange. In collaboration with his Wits University friend, Bevan R. Jones, Sean Gilbertson designed the Web and telephone interface to broker sales of coal consignments, as well as design a standardisation protocol and contract system.20 In order to do
The online brokerage portion of the globalCOAL business was bought out by Gilbertson and Jones in July 2000, who transferred its assets to their special-purpose vehicle, Gigajoule Ltd.21 They quickly sold off the rest of the business to a new company, Global Coal Ltd, in exchange for approximately GBP 1.2 million and – more importantly – a 3 per cent shareholding in the new company.22 The software was delivered to Accel-KKR’s offices in California; Sean used most of the cash to pay back the loans he received from the various global mining houses that had backed his enterprise, and he was soon appointed a director of the new globalCOAL company.23 Gigajoule effectively became a holding company for the three per cent shareholding in globalCOAL,24 and Sean eventually bought out Jones’s shares.25
Sean would also serve as CEO of globalCOAL from 2001 to 2003, increasing his financial interest in the company through a purchase of an additional 60,000 shares by the end of 2001.26 While his shareholding in globalCOAL paled in comparison to that held by BHP, Anglo American, E.ON Kraftwerke and Enel Group, Sean had established himself as a major player in a major industry – coal. And though his father’s connections and name were clearly influential in getting the business off the ground, Sean led this endeavour himself with the new technologies of the twenty-first century.
During his rise within globalCOAL, Sean returned to Tantalite Valley in late 1999 to usher in the new millennium. Steen Severin had just built a large mansion on Umeis Farm, and many of Sabine’s university friends were invited to ring in the year 2000 in one of the most isolated and gorgeous corners of the globe. Sean recalled that up to eighty people had accepted the invitation, and the group at Umeis was comprised of both locals and foreigners alike.27 This
Directly north-west of Tantalite Valley mine sits the mountainous Norechab Farm. If one compares it to farmland in more fertile parts of Namibia and South Africa, its 9,844 hectares would be considered massive, but when judged against neighbouring properties in southern Namibia, this size is a little below average. Although it was legally demarcated a ‘farm’, Norechab was never particularly productive for commercial sheep-farming, because the flats comprise less than half of the property, the greater part being mountains, koppies (hills) and dry riverbeds. Even so, since the Hom River passes through Norechab, over the decades the farm provided supplemental grazing to neighbouring properties during dry years. Sections were frequently grazed as pastoralists and shepherds moved their flocks from farm to farm, or farther afield to Warmbad village, where the animals could be sold or slaughtered. Sean was not interested in land for the purpose of farming, however. He wanted space, he wanted beauty, he wanted silence.
Norechab was being sold by business partners Burger W. Oelofsen, a medical doctor, and Willem F. Mans, who ran a trophy-hunting operation on nearby KumKum Farm, through the sale of their company, Marwilben Farming cc. In Namibia and South Africa, engaging in farm partnerships requires forming either a proprietary company (Pty) or a closed corporation (cc), which would actually own the farm, shares being divided among the investors. This practice became widespread after the passage of the Subdivision of Agricultural Land Act of 1970. Not only could farm parcels no longer be split into smaller sections, but direct individual shareholding of farmland was made illegal as well.28 Although corporate ownership of farmland made business partnerships possible without subdividing the land itself, it also made tracking farm ownership a remarkably burdensome ordeal. In order to avoid transfer duties on the sales of farms and erven, shares in the company are sold rather than the farm itself being put up for sale. This arrangement allows the records held at the Windhoek Deeds Office to remain unmodified even though a farm may have actually changed hands several times. In those cases, the holding company itself was sold, assets included. In order to track land sales in southern Namibia, one must consult both Deeds Office records and those of the Business and
This system of corporate farm ownership is also the primary means by which foreigners purchase farmland in Namibia. With the passage of the Agricultural (Commercial) Land Reform Act of 1995, the Republic of Namibia banned sales of agriculturally zoned land to non-Namibians. It also banned Namibian citizens from acting as ‘nominee owners’, who would legally stand in for the buyers who actually purchased the land.29 Corporate farm ownership in the form of cc or Pty companies enables foreigners to own 49 per cent of a property by holding 49 per cent of the shares in a Namibia-registered company. Although all owners must sign an affidavit stating that they are indeed Namibian citizens or representatives of a Namibian company, the corporate structure of farm ownership in Namibia renders it opaque for the public and government officials to ascertain who actually owns a property and whether that person is in fact a ‘nominee owner’.30
As a dual British and South African citizen, Sean Gilbertson could not purchase Namibian farmland outright. He needed a Namibian business partner, and he subsequently teamed up with his old university acquaintance, Heye Daun, to buy out Mans and Oelofsen’s shares, purchasing Marwilben Farming cc (Sean with 49 per cent and Heye with 51 per cent).31 Like Sean, Heye Daun had graduated with a degree in mining engineering and worked in mining finance, in his case with Old Mutual Investment Group and Nedbank Capital.32 Like Sean, he was an avid amateur pilot, and now, together with Sean, he owned Norechab Farm in southern Namibia.
With friends Finn Behnken (South African, also in mining finance, who would eventually own 24.5 per cent of Marwilben),33 Mark Adams (a photographer) and Murli Bhamidipati (an Indian engineer involved in energy and commodity finance in Vienna and Bilbao), Sean founded the Norechab Sand & Tent Club. Once or twice a year for nearly a decade, the team – and their significant others – would take extended holidays in Namibia, often visiting traditional tourist sites such as the Fish River Canyon or Sossusvlei. Inevitably,
In the early days, the Norechab Sand & Tent Club was in all likelihood an ephemeral escape from the stress of corporate mining finance, a sector in which nearly all club members were intimately engaged. The club members publicly portrayed Norechab as a place to camp, to ride motorbikes, to relax, drink and reconnect with old friends. They exchanged photos and stories on blog websites, even purchasing the domain name www.norechab.com for their website where they could muse on their journeys and plan future ones (see Figure 11). To Sean, Finn, Heye and their fellow club members, Norechab was an exotic, alluring place. They would comment on ‘strange vegetation’ common on the farm, such as the giant quiver tree (Aloidendron pillansii), or they would set up tripods to catch the setting sun or take long-exposure photos of the stars. None of these actions is surprising. Norechab – like the entire southern Karasburg District – is a striking and beautiful place.
Excerpts from the Norechab Sand & Tent Club website
Of course, like any boys’ camping club, one of the favoured pastimes was evening drinking parties – ‘sundowners’ in sophisticated parlance. Daytime hiking trips inevitably led to finding new and unique drinking spots on the
On the club’s website, these global jet-setters, confidently shaping a new era in mining – summarised Norechab’s early purpose.
Space is the ultimate luxury. No human beings in a 50 km radius. No electricity. No telephones. No clouds. Warm winds in your ears. Norechab covers 10 thousand hectares in a shape roughly 15 km by 7 km. It is located south of Warmbad, Namibia, no further than 20 km north of the Orange River. It’s dry; it’s stark; it’s beautiful. It belongs to Heye Daun, Finn Behnken, and Sean Gilbertson. Silence: Absolute. Stars: Trillions. Dry River Beds: Two. Windhoek Specials (beers). An unbeatable combination.36
Gilbertson and his friends are not middle-class South African or European tourists seeking to rough it in the Namibian bush. They own London real estate, companies and other high-value assets. The members of the Norechab Sand & Tent Club did not need to sleep in a tent pitched on the sand; they could afford to spend a month in Namibia’s most luxurious lodges. For these fast-rising mining executives, it was not luxury per se which was sought, but space in the clearly stated context of ‘Space is the ultimate luxury’. For them, Norechab represented perhaps the only experience they could not simply purchase with the swipe of a credit card. Norechab is far; Norechab is dry; Norechab is stark – and most of all, Norechab is theirs. Norechab was their private place where they
When Sean Gilbertson and his mates purchased Norechab, they had little intention of purchasing more land. For the time being, they had enough space.37 Pleasure projects rarely remain so benign, however. Friends drift apart; friends get married and move farther away. As the years went on, the Norechab Sand & Tent Club spent less and less time camping in Norechab’s bush and more time in conventionally luxurious spots. The team’s October 2003 journey transported eleven passengers spread across three Cessna planes; only two nights of the itinerary were spent at Norechab.38 Swakopmund hotels and Sossusvlei lodges were the preferred accommodation. By April 2006, the club’s annual tour was taken solely by Behnken and his partner.
You suggest that the introduction of carbon taxes by governments is a plausible solution to the problem of CO2. Governments should legislate and force producers to use, store, or be penalised for their CO2, but transparent markets should determine prices. Producers should be free to choose how they pay for CO2 creation, whether by storage, technological advancement, consumption (such as ‘hiring’ forests) or the purchase of emissions credits. This would give rise to a competitive industry that
determines accurate prices for the most efficient and cost-effective manner of reining in CO2’s environmental threat.39
Sean ultimately believed that problems involving climate change, CO2 emissions and nature conservation could be solved through market forces and, as he implied, enlightened ‘consumption’.
In his study of Teton County, Wyoming, the sociologist Justin Farrell argued that the ultrawealthy often engage in and use conservation practices (broadly and vaguely defined by them) as ‘a tool to recapture something they’ve lost on their morally treacherous march toward economic triumph’.40 If their wealth had been accumulated along an ecologically questionable pathway, they might seek to use their renewed relationship with nature to cleanse their conscience and greenwash their wallet. While Sean’s initial purchase of Norechab had little to do with altruistic conservationism – or even conservation at all – this motivation would change over time. And though the Club’s mantra, ‘Space is the Ultimate Luxury’, would never fade, the reason behind obtaining space and the justification for experiencing luxury would change over the coming years.
Unless mentioned otherwise, information relating to personal visits to Norechab is sourced from www.norechab.com (Accessed 16 May 2024).
Quoted in ‘Brian Gilbertson: The Industry’s Godfather’, Global Mining Observer, 109 (2014).
P. Thompson and R. Macklin, The Big Fella: The Rise and Rise of BHP-Billiton (Sydney, William Heinemann, 2009), p. 233.
B. Sergeant, Brett Kebble: The Inside Story (Cape Town, Struik, 2006).
‘Brian Gilbertson: The Industry’s Godfather’, Global Mining Observer 109 (2014).
See also, J. McCulloch, South Africa’s Gold Mines and the Politics of Silicosis (New York, James Currey, 2012).
J. Walker, ‘Gencor Pops Champagne on Achieving its Ambitious Dream’, Business Times (22 June 1997).
Ibid.
Gold Fields, ‘Our History, 1998–2003’ https://www.goldfields.com/1998-2003.php
Brian Gilbertson would resign in 2003 after his dealmaking went a bit too far, and the BHP-Billiton board rejected his USD 100-billion proposed merger with Rio Tinto (see chapter 9). ‘BHP Chief in Shock Resignation’, CNN (5 January 2003). ‘Brian Gilbertson: The Industry’s Godfather’, Global Mining Observer 109 (2014). Sean T. Gilbertson, personal communication with Bernard C. Moore & Luregn Lenggenhager (email, 28 October 2024).
K. Ho, Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street (Durham, NC, Duke University Press, 2009).
Ibid, p. 209.
Sean T. Gilbertson to Bernard C. Moore (7 January 2023): letter in authors’ possession.
Sabine Andersen (née Severin), interview with Bernard C. Moore (telephone, 2 January 2023).
Sean T. Gilbertson to Bernard C. Moore (7 January 2023): letter in authors’ possession.
Gemfields Resources PLC, ‘Letter to Shareholders from the Chairman of Gemfields’, in AIM Readmission Document (13 May 2008). Sean T. Gilbertson, personal communication with Bernard C. Moore & Luregn Lenggenhager (email, 28 October 2024).
UK Company House Archives, Cardiff (hereafter, UKCHA) Company no. 03531881: ‘Certificate of Incorporation of a Private Limited Company’ – 6 March 1998. Note that in 1999, Global Coal Market Ltd officially changed its name to Spectron Global Coal Ltd after the energy broker Spectron acquired a 50% stake; see UKCHA 03531881: ‘Certificate of Incorporation on Change of Name’ – 11 August 1999.
See the Internet Archive Wayback Machine crawl (hereafter, IAWB) of ‘globalCOAL, FAQ s’ – 8 October 2003. https://web.archive.org/web/20031008135008/http://www.globalcoal.com/general/faq.cfm
globalCOAL, ‘Standard Coal Trading Agreement: Specifications and Definitions’ – as of 9 October 2019. https://www.globalcoal.com/scota/specifications.cfm
See Bevan Robert Jones, LinkedIn profile (Accessed 1 February 2023).
UKCHA #03531881: ‘Financial Statements for the Year Ending 31 March 2000’.
UKCHA #4007764: Gigajoule Ltd & Global Coal Ltd, ‘Sale of Business Agreement’ – 18 April 2001.
UKCHA #4007764: Global Coal Ltd, ‘Appointment of Director or Secretary: Sean T. Gilbertson’ – 18 April 2001. He had received approximately GBP 1.1 million in loans from Accell-KKR, Anglo American, Billiton, Glencore, Rio Tinto and Global HubCo B.V. [BHP].
UKCHA #3936280: Gigajoule Ltd, ‘Directors’ Report and Financial Statements for the Period Ended 31 July 2001’.
UKCHA #3936280: Gigajoule Ltd, ‘Annual Return’ – 28 February 2012.
UKCHA #4007764: Global Coal Ltd, ‘Report and Financial Statements, 31 December 2001’.
Sean T. Gilbertson to Bernard C. Moore (7 January 2023), letter in authors’ possession.
Subdivision of Agricultural Land Act 70 of 1970, Government Gazette of the Republic of South Africa (nos. 2867 and 2950). The act became law in Namibia in 1971.
‘Agricultural (Commercial) Land Reform Act 6 of 1995’, Government Gazette of the Republic of Namibia (no. 1040 of 1995), sections 58–62.
Various Namibian attorneys and government officials are aware of, and occasionally investigate, purported efforts by individuals and companies to evade and/or avoid or circumvent land reform legislation. This has been an ongoing problem since the promulgation of the law in 1995.
Archives of the Business and Intellectual Property Authority of Namibia (hereafter, BIPA) File CC/1996/0628: Amended Founding Statement (CC-2) – 1 December 2000.
Today, he is CEO of the Namibian/Canadian gold mining company, Osino Resources.
BIPA File CC/1996/0628: Amended Founding Statement (CC-2) – 20 March 2007.
IAWB: ‘Norechab: Home Page’ – 24 June 2002. https://web.archive.org/web/20020624033823/http://www.norechab.com
R. Swilling, ‘Sandfontein Lodge: Far South of Namibia’, Travel News Namibia (undated, likely 2012). https://www.travelnewsnamibia.com/news/stories/destinations/sandfontein-lodge-far-south-of-namibia/
‘Norechab: About’ – http://www.norechab.com/about.htm (Accessed 2 February 2023), italics ours.
Sean T. Gilbertson to Bernard C. Moore (7 January 2023), letter in authors’ possession.
‘Norechab: The Twin Rivers Trip (Oct 2003)’, http://www.norechab.com/oct2003.htm (accessed 2 February 2023).
Sean Gilbertson, letter to the editor of The Economist (3 August 2002).
J. Farrell, Billionaire Wilderness: The Ultra-Wealthy and the Remaking of the American West (Princeton, 2020), p. 78.