Forminière

The Société internationale forestière et minière du Congo (French; lit. 'International Forestry and Mining Company of the Congo'), known as Forminière, was a mining company in Belgian Congo.[1] Founded in 1906 with an intended diversified portfolio of activities, it soon found diamonds in the Kasai region and made diamond mining its main activity. Its operations ended in 1962, soon after the independence of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and it was eventually dissolved in 1966.

Overview

In the early years of the 20th century the Congo Free State propaganda war persuaded Leopold II of Belgium that he might not be able to keep personal ownership of the Congo Free State for much longer, so that he attempted to secure continued economic benefit from it by creating three companies that would control the territory's principal resources: the Union Minière du Haut-Katanga (UMHK), Compagnie du chemin de fer du bas-Congo au Katanga (BCK), and Forminière. These were established in the fall of 1906 with advice from Jean Jadot and Hubert Droogmans, respectively with initial capital of 10 million, 2 million, and 3.5 million Belgian francs.[2] The Forminière's capital, initially divided into 7,000 shares, was initially held by Leopold's Foundation of the Crown and Congo Free State (58 percent); a group of American investors led by Thomas Fortune Ryan and Daniel Guggenheim (25 percent); and a group of Belgian investors led by the Société Générale de Belgique (17 percent). Leopold's plans were thwarted when the Free State was taken over by the Belgian Government in 1908, however, as he was not allowed to keep the Foundation of the Crown for himself. Instead, the Foundation was terminated, and its assets and liabilities were directly assumed by the Belgian state. The Belgian state thus retained a 55-percent ownership stake in the Forminière.[3]

See also

• Diamang (Angola)
• American Congo Company

Bibliography

• Forminière 1906-1956, Brussels, Ed. L. Cuypers, 1956, 211p.