UNIFIED LIST of UNITED STATES COMPANIES Doing Business in SOUTH AFRICA and NAMIBIA
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UNIFIED LIST of UNITED STATES COMPANIES Doing Business in SOUTH AFRICA and NAMIBIA by Richard Knight The Africa Fund and Roger Walke Pacific Northwest Research Center Second Edition 1988 (associated with the American Committee on Africa) 198 Broadway e New York, NY 10038 CONTENTS Introduction ................................................... i U.S. Companies with Ownership in South Africa and Namibia Ranked by Number of Employees ............................. v Ranked by Sales .......................................... vi Ranked by Assets ........................................ vii Key to the Unified List ..................................... viii The Unified List ............................................... I Numbered Sources .............................................. 81 Special thanks to Andrew Weiss, who put in many hours of work helping to collect the information necessary to publish this list. copyright 1988 The Africa Fund INTRODUCTION This unified list on U.S. corporate involvement in South Africa and Namibia has been compiled to meet the needs of the divestment movement. As the campaign to isolate South Africa has grown, so has the need for accurate information about U.S. corporate economic involvement in the apartheid economy. Over the past few years, a number of lists of U.S. corporations with investments in South Africa or Namibia have been compiled. This work has been done by research organizations, business reference services, U.S. government agencies and activist groups. The Unified List is a compilation of existing sources to create a master list of American firms with investments, loans or licensing/franchising agreements in South Africa and Namibia. Those sources include the U.S. government, the Investor Responsibility Research Center (IRRC), the U.N. Centre on Transnational Corporations, and Corporate Data Exchange. Further information comes from The Africa Fund's extensive correspondence with several hundred companies profiled in this list. Additional information was also obtained from company documents such as Annual Reports, Form 10-Ks and proxy statements and from constant monitoring of reports in the U.S., British and South African financial press. The Fund would like to thank the many organizations and individuals who have provided us with information from their own correspondence with the companies, including several municipal governments and activist and religious organizations. Information from a number of different sources was used in compiling each entry. These are detailed in the numbered sources. In some cases there is conflicting or incomplete information on a particular company's involvement in South Africa or Namibia. The Africa Fund has had to make its own assessment as to the current involvement of those companies based on the available information. It should not be assumed that because a source is listed for an entry, that source necessarily agrees with the entry in the Unified List in its entirety. Corporate Withdrawals Since the Unified List was first published in June 1985, a number of U.S. companies have ended their direct investment in South Africa and Namibia. These companies include IBM, General Motors and Coca Cola. However, many of these companies have continued to do business in South Africa and Namibia through licensing and franchising agreements. In January 1987, in response to these developments, new "Guidelines for Divestment" were issued by five major U.S. anti-apartheid organizations. These guidelines, reprinted below, state that companies that retain licensing or franchising agreements in South Africa and Namibia will still be targets for divestment. Where possible, we have indicated the companies that continue to do business in South Africa through such agreements. UNIFIED LIST (i) What the List Includes The Unified List includes: * companies with involvement both in South Africa and in Namibia; * companies with investments, licensing/franchising agreements and loans; * the identity of the final parent corporation; * the linkages: each parent company's subsidiary and/or affialiate is identified linking the parent to South Africa and Namibia; * the type of involvement of each parent company; for those companies with ownership in South Africa or Namibia, information (where available) regarding the number of employees, assets, sales or loan participation is included; and * the sources from which information about a particular corporation was obtained (see the Numbered Sources, page 81). This is a list of U.S.-based companies. Foreign companies are only included on the list if they own a U.S. company with operations in South Africa and/or Namibia or if a U.S.-based company owns a foreign company with operations in South Africa and/or Namibia. The one exception to the rule is Royal Dutch/Shell, which has been included because of the current campaign against Shell in the United States. Note Corporate connections with South Africa and Namibia are constantly in flux and additional information becomes available almost daily. Thus this list should be used as a starting point for further investigation. Before taking final divestment action users of the Unified List should seek confirmation r.e. corporate involvement from the companies themselves, especially where an investment portfolio held in trust is concerned. The information appearing in the Unified List is derived from a wide variety of sources, including secondary sources. While we have striven for accuracy, we can not guarantee the correctness of information appearing in the list. Changes in the Second Edition of the Unified List Several changes have been made in the format of the second edition of the Unified List to make it easier to read. Most importantly, a new column has been added to display the CURRENT STATUS of each corporation's involvement in South Africa and/or Namibia. This column indicates whether the company continues to have economic ties with South Africa and/or Namibia. In addition, much more information has been included on companies with franchising/licensing agreements and on corporate withdrawals. In some cases where the available information is not conclusive this has been indicated. UNIFIED LIST (ii) Types of Involvement with Apartheid There are five general categories of economic involvement in South Africa and Namibia: (I) direct investment such as ownership of a firm involved in manufacture, sales or service operations; (2) loans (indirect investment) (3) licensing/franchising agreements, whereby an American licensor sells a South African or Namibian company the knowledge and/or rights to make or sell a product or service; (4) sales, including maintaining marketing or sales representatives or local distributors, for U.S. corporate products; and (5) news-gathering operations. Companies in South Africa and/or Namibia for news gathering purposes only have not been a target of the divestment movement. Bank Loans, Underwriting, and Loan Policies Two events have dominated U.S. bank lending to South Africa in the past few years. In September 1985, in the face of mounting capital flight and the refusal by some U.S. banks to renew existing short-term loans that were coming due, the South African Government declared a debt repayment standstill. South Africa continued paying interest due on the debt, and subsequently resumed some repayment of the principal. Although the Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986 prohibited all new loans to South Africa except for the purpose of trade, existing loans covered by the debt standstill are allowed to be renewed. U.S. bank loans to South Africa have slowly declined from over $4.9 billion in September 1984 to just under $2.9 billion by the beginning of 1988. The vast majority of the outstanding loans, $2.1 billion, is owed to Bankers Trust, Chase Manhattan, Chemical, Citibank, Continental Illinois, Manufacturers Hanover and J.P. Morgan. A bank may be involved in loans in two ways. Firstly, it can lend money to a borrower, to be repaid by the borrower. Secondly, it can underwrite a bond issue. In this process the underwriter acts as an intermediary, taking (usually buying) the bonds from the issuing company in order to re-sell them to investors. An underwriter may also decide to retain some of the bonds. Commercial banks may either lend directly or underwrite, while investment banks and securities brokers usually underwrite only. In both types of loan involvement, a bank may later sell all or some of the loan or bonds to other banks or lenders, before the loan or bond has matured (i.e. been fully repaid). The crucial factor is the bank's willingness to be involved when the loan is first made. Bank entries include information on the bank's loan or underwriting policy. It should be noted that banking is an international business. Many banks have overseas subsidiaries not covered by the Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986 and MAY still be involved in providing new loans or underwritings to South African borrowers. Generally, we have said a bank is NOT IN SA if it has a policy of no new loans to South Africa. Two types of figures are given for banks. One is the bank's own outstanding loans. The other is loans or underwritings participated in, which is not the amount that individual banks have loaned. Thus, Citicorp has not itself loaned $2.6 billion to South Africa but has participated in loans or underwritings totaling this amount. UNIFIED LIST (iii) Accounting Firms & Advertising Agencies These two types of firms require a special note. Most accounting firms are partnerships, organized without equity ownership from one country to another. Thus, in the case of Arthur Andersen, the U.S. firm has no ownership in the South African company of the same name. Rather, all the partnerships are affiliated to an international grouping and all must follow the same accounting procedures. This is especially important to multinational companies, who typically use the same accounting group in all countries in which they operate. For some advertising agencies we do not have sales figures but do have figures for total billings. The Africa Fund has used the industry standard that sales equal 15% of billings.