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Bamangwato Concessions

The Bamangwato Concession

A note on the name. This thought is spelled Bamwangato. The correct form — and the spelling used throughout the Blue File and the knowledge base — is Bamangwato. A search on the thought's own spelling returns zero results; a search on Bamangwato returns 117 name variants and 41 chunks. The thought should probably be renamed, but that is a change to the graph and has not been made.

What the concession is

The Bamangwato Concession is a mineral grant made by Khama, paramount chief of the Bamangwato, in 1888 — the same year, and by the same method, as the Tati Concession granted by Lobengula. Together they are the two founding land-and-mineral instruments of the British South Africa Company's territory, and both survive in modified form into the present.

The Blue File's own summary states the position plainly: the mineral interests of the Bechuanaland Exploration Company included "the Bamangwato Concessions … from Khama, also dating back to 1888 and held by Zimbabwe Botswana Investments (Pvt.) Ltd a Glazer company".

The 1888 sale — the primary document

The concession was not merely granted. It was sold, in London, for £50,000, before the Charter existed.

An agreement made in London on 16 May 1888 — supplemental to an earlier agreement of 27 March 1888 — records the sale between Edward Jones, mining engineer, and Francis Ignatius Ricarde-Sever of 26 Rue Camdon, Paris, gérant of the Caisse des Mines, a French société en commandite.

The terms in the document itself: of the £50,000 stipulated in Clause 3 of the March agreement, £40,000 had been paid in cash and stood to the credit of the Bechuanaland Exploration Company Limited at the London and Westminster Bank, Lothbury. A further £10,000 was secured by deposits of £500 and £9,500, held in the joint names of Edward Jones, George Cawston, and Ricarde-Sever. 50,000 shares were to be issued, not transferable for one year. Completion was extended from 21 May to 4 June 1888.

The document carries its own filing instruction: "(To be filed with the papers of the Bechuanaland Exploration Company Limited)".

This matters for two reasons. First, the Bamangwato Concession was a tradable financial instrument before the Royal Charter of October 1889 — it was bought with French capital through a London bank, with Cawston — the future co-founder of the Chartered Company — holding the escrow. Second, the money is denominated in sterling, raised by subscription, and banked in London. The concession enters history already financialised.

The documents are hand-written. The Blue File records that they "took considerable time to decipher. Incomplete words were illegible and accordingly marked" — and the transcription itself contains a dating conflict: the heading reads "27 Mar. 1888" while the body reads "made … the 16th May 1888" and describes itself as supplemental to the March agreement. There are two agreements, and the heading names only one.

How it reached Glazer

The Bechuanaland Exploration Company (BEC) was registered on 25 April 1888. Its own Articles, dated the same day, direct the directors to enter into the agreement with Ricarde-Sever's Caisse des Mines and carry it into effect. The company was therefore created to hold this concession.

Bernard Glazer acquired BEC in 1953 and Tati Company Ltd (UK) in 1955. Tati's shareholding was held through Glazer Brothers (Zimbabwe). Tati had acquired the Tati Concessions — 1.3 million acres from Lobengula, 1888 — and the BEC mineral interests passed to Tati by internal book entry for $2 after 1986, when BEC was placed into voluntary liquidation. That liquidation, the Blue File notes, is "still not finalized".

In 1988, the assets of BEC — including the Bamangwato Concession Agreement of 1888 — were transferred to Tati Company for $2.

Title Deed 767/88, dated 11 November 1988, records a transfer from BEC to Sam Estate Land Company for a nominal P312,000.

So a grant bought in London for £50,000 in 1888 changed hands internally for two dollars a century later.

The 1970 agreement

In February 1970, holding these interests, Glazer signed an agreement with Sir Seretse Khama — the same Khama dynasty that granted the original concession — "to realize the mineral potential already identified in this agreement to include those held by LionOre today".

The Blue File puts the 1970 agreement at the centre of the Botswana mineral succession. A 25 February 1970 entry records the principle: "Retention of MR. GOV. not to receive better Title than BE or Tati". On 30 December 1971 Botswana took State Title 223/71, purchased from Tati, and simultaneously executed in Tati's favour a Certificate of Mineral Rights No. 19/71.

The mechanism is worth stating carefully: the state acquired the surface, and the mineral right was issued back.

The abandonment of 1974

On 21 June 1974 Tati executed a Notarial Deed of Abandonment of Mineral Rights in north-east Botswana (No. 32/74) — excluding the 12 mineral areas ceded to Tati Territory Exploration Company. Mineral rights tax exemption commenced 30 June 1974.

Four days later, on 25 June 1974, Tati Territory Exploration abandoned that cession (No. 33/74) — and the Blue File records that no release in favour of the Botswana Government is referenced.

The Blue File's reading is that the rights did not revert. A special prospecting licence was granted from 1 July 1974 "until Botswana Government, Anglo & Tati Company could find an acceptable operator" — and the operator found was, in substance, the same interest.

The modern end — BCL, LionOre, Norilsk

Bamangwato Concessions Limited (BCL) is an integrated nickel-copper mining and concentrating operation, owned Anglo American 33%, Botswana Government 33%, general public 34%. Centametall holds a custom smelting contract with it.

In 2002 LionOre acquired Anglo's 43.35% of Tati Nickel, and as part of that acquisition took an equity interest in BCL for a cash consideration of $2 — comprising a 7.5% direct interest in BCL and a 23.5% interest in Botswana RST Limited, whose main asset is 85% of BCL.

LionOre itself came by reverse restructuring: Liberian Iron Ore, established 1958, reverse-listed into a Canadian shell in 1996, and acquired 98.3% of Francistown Mining & Exploration (Jersey) for $26 million in July 1996.

The exit is recorded in the Blue File as "LionOre by Xstrata & Norilsk — Current June 07". The researcher's note connects Norilsk's Siberian origins in the 1930s to Glazer's 1970s acquisition of the Siberian Syndicate (UK 1913), later renamed Crest International Securities.

The B-Series link

This is the part that puts the thought in the Green File rather than merely the Blue File.

The Blue File states: "research reveals the foundation of modern history was established between 1970-1975 with the 'special' issuance of USTB 1975-2005 that has a direct relation to 'resources'."

USTB 1975-2005 is the United States Treasury bond series issued in May 1975 and due in May 2005 — CUSIP 912810BU1, the 8¼% Treasury Bonds of 2000-05, $4,224 million outstanding at the call. That is the same instrument that appears at the centre of the Exchange Stabilization Fund investigation, called for redemption on 15 May 2000.

The archive places the 1970 Khama agreement, the consolidation of Glazer's mineral interests, and the 1975 bond issuance in the same five-year window, and asserts a direct relation between them. It does not, in this corpus, set out the mechanism. The juxtaposition is the archive's thesis; the mechanism is the open question.

What is not established

The link between the 1970-75 mineral consolidation and the USTB 1975-2005 issuance is asserted, not demonstrated. The sentence above is the whole of it. No document in this corpus connects the two by transaction, and anyone reading this as established would be going beyond the record.

The original Khama grant of 1888 is not in this corpus. What is held is the sale agreement of March and May 1888, between Jones and the Caisse des Mines. The grant from Khama to Jones is referred to but not reproduced.

The 1974 abandonment's legal effect is the Blue File's reading, not a court finding. The claim that the rights did not revert to Botswana rests on the absence of a release document and on the subsequent licensing arrangement. Absence of a document is evidence, not proof.

The thought is misspelled and untyped. Bamwangato Concessions has no type, no children, no tags, and one parent (Glazer Investments). A separate, correctly-spelled thought — Botswana Glazer Mineral Rights Tati / Bamangwato Concessions 1888-2007 — holds 35,577 characters on the same subject. The two should probably be merged or cross-linked; neither has been done.

The image at the head of this note is a screenshot of the graph, not a document. It carries nothing that is not already in the structure.

Provenance

Where to read further

Botswana Glazer Mineral Rights Tati / Bamangwato Concessions 1888-2007 (35,577 characters) is the substantial note on this subject — it carries the full dated succession from 1914 to 2007, the company register, and the administrator correspondence. Rhodes's Wills (29,760 characters) carries the 1888 concession architecture from the Rhodes side. Bechuanaland Mining Exploration Company (UK 1888) carries the corporate history of the holding vehicle.

This note is a synthesis of the concession itself. Where it and the Botswana succession note disagree, that note is closer to the source.