The New Look

Abstract

The boldness of the step that Gold Fields took when it acquired control of American Zinc in 1963 aroused a great deal of comment in the financial press. Here was a reversal of the customary order of such transactions. A British company was actually taking over an old-established American organization—and its bid was $18,000,000! As always there was an undercurrent of unpublished criticism of what was described as ‘a gamble in zinc’ and of the allegedly ‘unrealistic’ price paid for the shares. The answer to these critics, if answer were needed, came when Gold Fields’ balance sheets were published in the years that followed. American Zinc’s profit, which had been £672,000 in 1962–3, soared to £1,175,000 the following year and to £1,698,000 in 1965. At the same time the group’s profit, before tax, rose from £7,300,000 in 1963 to £9,600,000 in 1964 and to £11,605,000 in 1965.