The moment he bought tough gold mines, he bought easier platinum mines. So, I mean, we're now we're going to have a confused conversation.
Neil, um, I don't know where how far back are we going to take the story, but I think it was about this time of the year in 2001 that you resigned from Harmony and you went to the cables. Now, I mean, I'm still struggling with that. I know I was quite a boss, but the cables just talk us through what happened there and then we can go further back and unpack your story, which is quite a phenomenal story. Just help me with my issue.
There's no issue, but um let's move on then.
I thought we were going to have a truthful conversation.
No, no, no, no. I um listen I joined Harmony to work with you. We we made a big difference and um I needed to do my own thing. Um the opportunity came with um I suppose the relationships we had and it was really to assist Roger in supposedly restructuring JCR which I don't think he had discussed with Brett.
His father and son were not always on the same page.
Yeah. Yeah. But it's it it really it lasted six months because I also wasn't going to waste my time.
But listen, I mean I start there to be facitious. But you have done flipping and bold things. You studied the wrong degree. You realize that you changed company to get to a better company. You then got a blasting ticket to get into mining. Flip, dude. Unpack for us. So we we will get to where you succeeded. But your you didn't take the simple straight route.
No, I didn't. Um, so I never intended to go into mining. Um, I actually wanted to be an Air Force pilot. That's where where it started. And um, my dad actually said to me, listen, be careful because if you fail a medical, there's there's no real future. So I said, all right, that's uh, that's fine. I'll do engineering. And I did mechanical. But I happened to get a bery from goldfields, the old goldfields and um and doing back work for them as we all had to do for the companies that gave us burseries. I actually really enjoyed mining it. Um there was a lot of empowerment. There was a lot of teamwork. Um but I also realized very quickly especially in the old gold fields might not uh um wherever you are the new gold fields is very different and but I didn't have the right school tie and as an engineer you in those days you certainly as a mechanical engineer um there wasn't a I didn't think there was a great future you know and there wasn't a line into management so I had to go back do a blasting ticket manager ticket And that's when we met each other.
I had to sign off his underground shift and I'm not sure he did all of them. I just want to say I'm not sure he did all of them.
I did blast my own road on the farms.
Yeah. Um because you then joined Jen Gold, but even there you joined at a head office and then opted to go to the mine which is where we first met.
Correct. So um so I left Goldfields because as I say I didn't have the right school time. Um I joined in fact Mike alluded to it to a very dynamic organization being Jenko. Um Brian Gilbertson was the chairman at the time and Derek Key actually I think Derek Keys handed over to Brian and um but I went into projects. I was a project manager, project engineer, but um I worked for a guy who le dupy who was very dynamic in his thinking and wanted to introduce multi-killing. And you would remember from our days at Kinros, mining was very siloed and and I would argue that um we actually turned the industry on its head and we took away those silos and we put the skills where they belonged. Um, and to lead the way, I said, I'll do a blasting ticket. But it was also part of a longerterm plan to get exposure into management and operations.
But you and I reported into a difficult old bastard, hey, like we all did.
Bruce Lightman recently died. And I mean, I remember him calling me in and when I say, "Oh, but the bloody engineers." And he says, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Neil, just come in. Banard wants to talk about your department." Uh, so the silos between you and I got confronted from early on. I mean, in his bad management style, he had a significant impact on my own thinking. I'm not sure, you know, how it impacted those people impacted on your own development.
Yeah. Listen, he was he was difficult, but he gave us a a break in a time where these
Um, that's a good question. I think I was in my early 30s.
Yeah. No, that both of us were young.
It's hard to believe, but we were young.
Yeah, it is hard to believe.
But uh Yeah. Listen, and I I think I think working for a difficult guy, but a good guy, I think the relationship we had in terms of being transparent and solving the problems where they needed to be solved resulted in in things like a transfer of skills into the mining function and vice versa, some of the technical mining skills into the technical function. And and in fact then Jenko implemented the technical manager concept which was was was groundbreaking may may not have been that groundbreaking in the rest of the world but certainly in labor intensive deep level risky operations was was unique.
Yeah. No that and I would like to think later adding emphasis on the all body is uh what contributed. But now the story you don't like me telling but I have to tell this because you know now he's a CEO of a very successful company wah wah wah and you know Mr. Governance this man taught me how to order a bell dump truck within the limited budget I had as the manager mining he ordered a wheel separately from the axle separately from the whatever and we built the project before head office found out. Um, now today that would be frowned upon as bad governance, but we never ever stole the money. We just worked around the rules. He doesn't like that story because he's not like that anymore. But I mean, I fired people for that.
Yeah. No, you have to. I suspect I would have fired people as well for that. But, uh, thank God our boss didn't.
Um Neil, so uh um and this is if if you if you allow me to deliberately a conversation because you are to the end of your active career. You've handed over you're in the process of handing over to Richard Stewart now.
It's actually going very well now.
But is it hard? Is it hard to let go?
It's it's actually harder than I imagined. And and listen, it was not a a recent decision. I decided probably two to three years ago to retire together with my chief of staff. We developed or we first researched uh what is worldclass succession planning in a public company and um and I dare say this in my view will be a benchmark for the right way of doing it. So a lot of it was was very analytical um research orientated but it it does it does get difficult when you start actually implementing and you have to let go. Um but Richard and I have worked together for many years. Um he's um he's been earmarked for the job for a long time. So but it is difficult Bernardet. It's it is but I look forward to a new chapter
and we'll get to the new chapter in a moment. So you uh did a couple of things including entrepreneurial private stuff. Uh I think that's the gold one phase and uranium one. Um but then you rejoined gold fields in order to split out the saravagan assets. Is that correct? Was that you you did go to gold fields to spin out what became SBA now?
Yeah. So, so what happened? We had built gold one and um we had entered into a joint venture with gold fields on tailings retreat. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I forgot that. Yeah. on the west on the west bits and um um we were allowed to do a due diligence on drientain but like all South Africa mature South African assets there was a real tax issue in terms of u destroying value if you had to just sell them. So Nick and all and Mike's right, all credit to Nick. Um he he basically when we found we couldn't acquire Drifontain um he said he was going to unbundle um the the Drifant Cliff and and Brix and um I volunteered after going to my shareholders to actually lead that process. So I actually volunteered for this job.
Yeah. We're not going to go into that. We've all made mistakes. You'll stand out fine. You'll stand out fine. But those gold assets must be making money now, but they're not easy. I mean, they are deep. They are old. They must be in the final chapter of their lives, one would assume. Um, is is so talk to us about gold because I think there's more to your gold story than the two old ladies or the three old ladies. So just talk a little bit about the SBA gold.
