Brian Gilbertson, the South African dealmaker who helped build the global mining giant BHP Billiton Ltd. before his departure as chief executive officer in 2003, has died. He was 82.
Gilbertson passed away at his home in South Africa on Wednesday after a long illness, his family said in a statement. He’s survived by his wife Rensche, sons Quinton and Sean, and five grandchildren. The 2001 merger between Billiton and BHP created the world’s largest mining company.
Gilbertson, who resigned in 2003 because of “irreconcilable differences” with the company’s directors, went on to hold several other leadership positions in the corporate world. In the telling of his family, he resigned after being excluded from a board meeting amid a fallout over a proposed merger between BHP and its rival Rio Tinto that he’d backed. The transaction would have involved relocating the new group to London — a move that others at BHP opposed.
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Gilbertson’s post-BHP career included aiding the 2004 launch of Incwala Resources Ltd., a platinum venture to support Black economic empowerment in South Africa, of which he was the first chairman. He also took the chairmanship of Indian mining group Vedanta Resources Plc, which he led to a London stock listing in late 2003. In 2006, Gilbertson launched Pallinghurst Resources Ltd., named after a street in the upscale Johannesburg neighbourhood of Westcliff where he used to live, which invested in emeralds, platinum, manganese and iron ore, as well as the Faberge jewellery brand.
Pallinghurst has since been renamed Gemfields and has become the world’s largest miner of emeralds in Zambia and rubies in Mozambique. Bran Gilbertson stepped down as chairman in 2021, and Gemfields is now headed by Sean Gilbertson, his eldest son.
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