424 SIR ERNEST OPPENHEIMER
interest
in this company with a view to assisting at a later stage in the
provision of further funds for the company as may be required.
The
details of the scheme were complicated; but, to sum up, the capital of
the company was to be increased from £600,000 to -£3,000,000 by the
creation of 2,400,000 new shares. Of these, 900,000 were to be issued
at once within a period of six months: 125,000 to the Congo Border
Concession company in return for a transference to N'Changa of 30,000
additional acres; 300,000 to the existing shareholders, cither for cash
or under option for a period of six months. The American Smelting and
Refining Company was to take firm 118,750 shares, was to have a six-month option on another 356,250 shares, and, moreover,
provided
the American Smelting and Refining Company exercises their options over
the 356,250 shares hereinafter mentioned, then they will be entitled to
subscribe for 60 per cent of the 1,500,000 shares which the company
will offer for subscription at £2 per share within two years of the issue of the 193,750 shares now to be offered for cash.
Had
the American company exercised all its options (as it obviously had
every intention of doing, since if they were taken up American
Smelting would be given a 'firm contract' by the Minerals Separation
Limited, then the general managers, to relinquish that position in
favour of the American company), it would, within a period of two
years, hold 1,375,000 out of a total of 2,400,000 shares and thus be in
control of the enlarged N'Changa properties. Taking into account the
very large shareholdings in the Rhodesian Selection Trust group of
mines of American Metal, the Rhodesian copper industry would have
become almost an American preserve. The only company left clearly under
British control would have been Bwana M'Kubwa. It should be added that
these offers of shares and options were being made at prices much under
the then ruling prices of N'Changa shares on the London Stock Exchange.
Reaction
was instantaneous. Edmund Davis, on 29 January, a day later, was
writing (to Ernest Oppenlieimer) half ruefully, and yet half admiringly
as follows:
If
the transaction goes through as represented . . . the American Smelting
Company will have pulled off one of the most brilliant deals that have
ever been put through. First of all, Rhodesian Congo Border gives to
N'Changa, which now has an area of only about 2,880 acres, 30,000
additional acres, in which ore has already been proven by drilling,
and this
