For a bunch of guys who are supposed to be tough as nails, the world's leading miners are certainly doing a lot of schmoozing of late. Not a week goes by where a multibillion dollar mining deal doesn't hit the headlines or a mining exec doesn't get a friendly call from his local buy-out specialist. The tough guys are beginning to look irresistible - never mind the hard hats - with their bank balances swelled by seemingly never-ending dollops of cash from their Chinese customers.

Dealmaking and buy-out talks have heated up the metal sector to such an extent that the share prices of mining firms are hitting record highs with uniform regularity. None more so than the two companies heading the FM's table of JSE-listed giants - BHP Billiton and Anglo American, the world's largest and third-largest mining houses respectively. In between sits Britain's Rio Tinto and on the sidelines are a number of hungry pretenders such as Switzerland-listed XStrata.

Since the boom in commodity prices began in earnest five years ago the share prices of mining counters have gone through the roof. Anglo American was valued at R250bn in 2002, now it's almost R620bn. Similarly, BHP's market value has surged from R130bn to R430bn.

More specialist mining companies are also having a field day. Anglo Platinum is now valued at R280bn and Impala at R150bn. On the gold board AngloGold Ashanti is worth R90bn and Gold Fields almost as much at R85bn.

But these sky-high valuations are nothing compared to what value could be had, or so analysts believe. Investment bank Merrill Lynch has worked out that BHP Billiton's various assets could be stripped and sold for a total of US$200bn, giving a potential private equity raider a return of 34% on their investment.

BHP Billiton itself is said to be interested in acquiring Rio Tinto, speculation that was started amid reports that BHP's outgoing CEO Chip Goodyear was having dinner with incoming Rio boss Tom Albanese. Though competition autho-rities would probably block such a move it certainly is financially possible. Record cash flows mean even a deal between the No 1 and 2 mining groups could be funded and deleveraged within five years.

Anglo is also said to be on the radar screen of private equity firms, though they might call in South African Mick Davies, the belligerent CEO of XStrata, to provide some industry expertise.

Not that new Anglo CEO Cynthia Carroll is a pushover. Far from it. In the male-dominated mining industry, she has quickly proved her mettle by cutting out a layer of management at Anglo and striking quickly to clinch a number of base metal deals for the group.

She looks set to be far more active than her predecessor Tony Trahar, who spent $10bn in buying back shares over the past few years amid a perceived lack of acquisition opportunities. Anglo's current project pipeline is about $7bn but is likely to accelerate under Carroll.

Though BHP's Goodyear has also announced that he will return over $11bn to shareholders, he is far more active on the acquisition trail and has developed a project pipeline totalling almost $18bn. Underlying this strategy is his belief that, though many metal prices are at their highest level in over 20 years, they still have some way to go. "Though metal supplies are accelerating, most commodities remain in demand deficit," he said at the group's interim results in February. "Despite the expansion of China's domestic production base, imports of commodities will continue to play a crucial role in supporting the country's industrialisation," Goodyear said.

Apart from the focus on global miners, another characteristic of financial markets of late has been the spate of corporate dealmaking. According to Ernst & Young, SA merger & acquisition activity hit R284bn last year compared with R150bn in 2003.

What's more, the dreaded barbarians from the private equity industry are making their presence felt. The FM's top company last year, retailer Edcon, has been bought out for R25bn and delisted by Bain Capital of the US, though local private equity firm Brait failed in its bid to do the same to Shoprite. It's almost inevitable that the big private equity names from the US, such as KKR and Blackstone, will soon announce another leveraged buy-out on the JSE.

Amid the frenetic dealmaking and focus on mining companies it is easy to forget that many other leading SA companies are making huge global strides.

In many ways they have lost their SA identity, having been listed on offshore stock markets for a number of years now. But it is no coincidence that the most global of SA companies have dual listings - in order to attract the investors necessary to fund global expansion, firms must have a dual listing, or even a primary offshore domicile, even though this may dilute our patriotic pride in their performance.

Of the five SA firms that made the London Stock Exchange (LSE) their first home in the 1990s, all but IT group Dimension Data have at least doubled their market value over the past five years. Again, as the graph on page 24 shows, BHP Billiton is the best performer, followed by SABMiller, Anglo and Old Mutual. SABMiller's rise from its SA base to become the world's second-largest brewer in a mere decade is the ultimate success story of a local boy done good.

But the brewer is not the only one defining global trends. Cellphone company MTN, through its $5,5bn takeover of Lebanon's Investcom last year, now has a presence in 21 markets in Africa and the Middle East and keeps churning out record profits. Through Investcom, MTN is now operating in places like Afghanistan, Sudan, Côte d'Ivoire and Iran, where even an accomplished firm like SABMiller would have trouble doing business.