Ghanaian tycoon Sam Jonah is helping raise $1 billion for African critical minerals

Sam Jonah has joined a private equity team raising $1 billion to invest in African critical minerals, alongside the former Gold Fields chief executive Chris Griffith and the former Goldman Sachs banker Colin Coleman.

Griffith disclosed the venture in an interview with Investec Minds, saying a private equity team that was starting up had approached him and that he is now part of it. They are in the early stages of raising the money, he said, and he is working closely with Coleman, Jonah and colleagues in Ghana and South Africa, spending a good deal of his time setting the business up.

Critical minerals are the metals that go into batteries, electric vehicles, defence equipment and electronics, including cobalt, lithium, copper, graphite and rare earths. Africa holds a large share of the world's reserves, with the Democratic Republic of Congo dominating cobalt, Zimbabwe emerging in lithium and the Congolese and Zambian copperbelt supplying copper, and Western governments have spent the past three years trying to secure supply outside China.

Jonah built his reputation running Ashanti Goldfields, the Ghanaian miner, and now chairs his own investment company, Jonah Capital. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

Griffith left Gold Fields in December 2022 after a deal collapsed.

The company had agreed an all-share takeover of Canada's Yamana Gold valued at $6.7 billion, which would have pushed it into the top tier of global gold producers. Agnico Eagle and Pan American Silver came in with a better offer at the last moment and won. Griffith held himself responsible and stepped down.

He still thinks he was right. Gold was trading at about $1,700 an ounce at the time and is now above $4,000, he said, and Gold Fields shares were around 150 rand. The combined assets were worth substantially more than the price being paid, including the premium, which is why paying one was the right thing to do.

What he concedes is the timing. The deal came too early in his tenure, he said, and at $6.7 billion it was large enough to spook Gold Fields shareholders.

The company has since bought Osisko Mining for $1.58 billion and Gold Road Resources for $2.6 billion. Its shares have risen nearly 200% in two years on the back of the gold price, valuing it at 605 billion rand, about $37 billion, on the Johannesburg exchange.

South African mining executives now run much of the global industry. BHP appointed Brandon Craig from KwaZulu-Natal to succeed Mike Henry this year, Natascha Viljoen became the first woman to lead the American gold producer Newmont, Gary Nagle runs Glencore, and Duncan Wanblad runs Anglo American and is expected to stay in the job after its proposed merger with Canada's Teck Resources.