• Team strength forms foundation for sustainable business
• Demonstrated ability to manage risk in Africa

As we noted in last year’s annual report, 2010 was a year in which Randgold would have to deal with a wide range of operational and developmental issues as it continued its rapid growth into a complex and multi-faceted mining business. That it has improved its profit - to the extent that the board has been able to propose an 18% increase in the dividend - and kept the progress of its projects on track in very difficult circumstances is a tribute to Mark Bristow and his team. Once again, Randgold has shown that its real strength is its people - people whose skills, tenacity, commitment and courage form the foundation for building a sustainable business.

Given the importance of our people, we paid considerable attention over the past year to expanding our top team, strengthening our structures and building leadership capability. In growing our personnel, however, we are very mindful of the need to preserve the company’s essentially entrepreneurial spirit: increased size will never be allowed to dilute the corporate DNA that distinguishes Randgold from its peers. With the growing size and number of our operations, we have also been acutely aware of the necessity to continue to focus first of all on the safety of our workers, and as is recorded elsewhere in this report, good progress is being made on this front.

In recent months I have personally visited all our operations, and in the troubled Côte d’Ivoire in particular I saw again that one of the Randgold team’s special strengths is their ability to understand and manage the risks attendant upon running a resource company in Africa. The start of this new decade is witnessing another chapter in the process of transformation that started some 20 years ago with the re-opening for business of many African countries through de-nationalisation and the establishment of regulatory regimes that permitted foreign investors to create value and share it with their host countries. This created the opportunity for the kind of mutually advantageous partnerships between companies and local stakeholders that Randgold has been so successful in fostering.

As the developments in North Africa and elsewhere suggest, we may now be entering a new era where the people’s will can prevail over rulers who would not equitably share the wealth drawn from their countries’ natural resources. It is a cardinal point of Randgold’s partnership philosophy that its host countries’ share of the value created by its activities should be used not to reward a small elite but to help build sustainable economies capable of generating and sharing welfare for all. The latest political changes we are now beginning to see in Africa may well create fresh opportunities in new countries for the development of more such partnerships in an atmosphere of transparency and trust. This would be good news not only for Randgold but for the entire mining industry.

On the general subject of mining in Africa, while most countries have adapted well to their status as major mineral producers, all have been constrained by the lack of technical skills available locally. The mismatch between the growing demand for technical expertise and the shortage of local engineers and geologists can be seen all over the continent, and especially in West and Central Africa. Randgold has consequently taken the lead in an initiative to establish an educational facility in Africa that could help to bridge this gap by graduating promotions of African geologists and engineers who would not have needed to go overseas for their higher technical education and would find ready employment in their own countries upon graduation. The Republic of Mali has offered to host this proposed African School of Mines and the Nelson Mandela Institution has agreed in principle to sponsor its establishment with the support of, among others, the World Bank. The School would be open to students from all over the continent and would seek to attract a high-calibre teaching staff from the best mining schools in the world.

During the year the eminent academic Dr Kadri Dagdelen joined the board as a non-executive director. Dr Dagdelen is a professor and departmental head at the Colorado School of Mines in Denver and his appointment, which is in line with our phased succession plan, will add technical strength to the board. We continue to look at the composition of the board with the aim of achieving the optimum combination of international management experience, including technical, banking and diplomatic skills, along with an understanding of Africa and its people. The annual formal review of the board confirmed the effectiveness of its members and structures, while highlighting some areas for further attention.

Also during the year, Jon Walden resigned from the board and we thank him for the contribution he made. I would like to express my personal appreciation to my colleagues on the board for their independent spirit, inquiring minds and vast expertise they bring to our deliberations.


Philippe Lietard
Chairman