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Article: Harry Oppenheimer.(CEO of De Beers)(Brief Article)(Obituary)
- Article from:
- African Business
- Article date:
- October 1, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 IC Publications Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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SA industrialist and business leader 1908 - 2000
Former Anglo American and De Beers chairman, Harry Oppenheimer, will be best remembered as the kind and gentlemanly business leader, industrialist, philanthropist and major power behind liberal politics.
Much of the Oppenheimer fortune was built in the apartheid era when labour was cheap and production costs accordingly low. So the question often asked of him was whether or not his companies benefited under apartheid. His answer was that "we did do well, but we would have done even better if there hadn't been apartheid" It was ever thus for the Oppenheimers - the balancing of the creation of South Africa's ...