Papers presented by Peter Vale since 2019

2024 Providence, Rhode Island

"Decolonization and Organizational Transformations: Concessionary Companies in the Wake of Congolese Independence, 1966-1980"

Abstract:

In November 1950, the British Concessionary company Tanganyika Concessions Limited (TCL)—which was involved in both mining and railway operations in Belgian Congo and Portuguese Angola—shifted its headquarters from London to Salisbury in Southern Rhodesia. By the time of the Congolese nationalization of the Belgian mining giant Union Minière in 1967, TCL had again moved large parts of its administration and management to the Bahamas International Trust Company Building in downtown Nassau, Bahamas. As they moved offshore, the concessionary company also expanded its investments across new extractive frontiers, investing in the Rio Tinto-Zinc Corporation and lending 2 million USD to its subsidiary Tanks North Sea Ltd, which was prospecting for oil and gas in the north European continental shelf. When the Société Générale de Belgique (SGB) acquired both TCL and Union Miniere in the early 1980s, the head of SGB, René Lamy, suggested that the new Belgian parent company would fully redirect both companies’ operations towards international financial markets. These two companies had radically transformed over the course of the 20th century from managing colonial mining and railway operations to researching and directing financial investments across the world. This general trend is familiar, particularly given the recent interest in offshore finance; many of these offshore domains developed in the midst of the Global North crisis over decolonization. Different colonial and postcolonial governments had power in pushing out investors through nationalization (in Africa) and welcoming such investors with better tax policies (in the Caribbean). And yet, pre-existing companies could not just plug into this emerging offshore system. The companies that could realistically reap the benefits of this new system were the holding and investment companies. In many cases, though, this operational shift from extractive to investment company only commenced once mining, transport, and manufacturing operations were nationalized on the African continent. This paper explores these key transformations in corporate structures and operations amidst larger African nationalization movements.