The former Harmony CEO resurfaced in January 2008, running his own consultancy, advisory and investment firm To The Point. Two years later Swanepoel is still battling to get a decent foothold in the sector. It appears to have been a lot tougher to get back into the mining game than he expected. After initial forays as an independent director on the boards of Mintails and Camec (the Congo copper play), Swanepoel took stakes in dormant JSE-listed Village Main Reef and unlisted Delta Mining. His plan was to use Village as a listed vehicle to acquire mineral assets but fell foul of the JSE’s regulations, which held the deal would shift Village from being a “curtailed operation” to a “cash shell”. Village has been in a sort of limbo ever since. Never one to shy away from controversy, Swanepoel has most recently been in the thick of it in the battle between Simmer & Jack Mines and Vulisango. Swanepoel is an advisor to Vulisango, which has proposed him as chairman of the Simmers board.

LIFE OF BERNARD
Swanepoel holds a BCom from Unisa and a mining engineering degree from the University of Pretoria. He built Harmony from nothing into a force to be reckoned with but didn’t make it over the final hurdle when he failed in a hostile takeover bid for Gold Fields in 2004.