Lonrho


Lonrho is a London-based conglomerate that is engaged in multiple business sectors in Africa mainly agribusiness, infrastructure, transport, hospitality and support services.

History

Lonrho traces its roots from the original Lonrho plc a company which was incorporated in the United Kingdom on 13 May 1909 as the London and Rhodesian Mining and Land Company Limited. Lonrho plc grew to be one of the world's largest companies with over 800 subsidiary companies in 80 countries.
One previous CEO of Lonrho was the controversial "Tiny" Rowland, a corporate raider who ran the firm from 1962 to 1994.
The current Lonrho was formed on 26 February 1998 as a spin-off of Lonmin and it was then known as Lonrho Africa plc. The demerger transferred all non-mining African assets to the separate publicly listed Lonrho Africa plc while Lonrho plc retained the mining businesses. Lonrho Africa Plc subsequently changed its name to Lonrho Plc on 10 May 2007 following the approval of shareholders.
Lonrho was one of the funding partners in low-cost airline Fastjet operating in Africa. This is after they exchanged their stake in Fly 540 for shares in Rubicon Diversified Investments Plc, which was later renamed Fastjet in August 2012.
In 2013, Lonrho plc was delisted from the LSE, JSE and OTCQX after agreeing to a £174.5 Million takeover by FS Africa, a bid vehicle controlled by Swiss billionaire Thomas Schmidheiny and Rainer-Marc Frey.