25 June 2004
	SA's Top 20 Companies 16 BHP BILLITON Total score: 54,1

The world's biggest non-oil natural resources company can trace its SA roots back to the traditional gold mining house General Mining, founded by the Albu family in 1895 and listed in 1902. In a chequered history, expansion was followed by stagnation; the acquisition of control by Anglo American; its conversion into the first Afrikaner-controlled mining house; the absorption of rival Union Corp; and then global growth through successive mergers with the UK's Billiton and BHP, Australia's closest equivalent to an SA mining house. Much as the company tries to deny it, this has brought a steady downgrading of the importance of the SA business, but in local terms it's still a major player.