When the Mineworkers Investment Co opened its doors for business in June 1995, all it had was R3m in loan funding from the Mineworkers Investment Trust.

The directors and management knew this would not be enough to pose a serious challenge to established empowerment players such as Nthato Motlana's New Africa Investments Limited (Nail), Don Ncube's Real Africa Holdings and Thebe. But management had another asset in abundance: guts.