Forminière

In the early years of the 20th century, the Congo Free State propaganda war persuaded Leopold II of Belgium that he might not be able to keep personal ownership of the Congo Free State for much longer. In response, he attempted to secure continued economic benefit from it by creating three companies that would control the territory's principal resources.

The so-called "companies of 1906" were the Union Minière du Haut-Katanga (UMHK), Compagnie du chemin de fer du bas-Congo au Katanga (BCK), and Forminière. All three were established in the fall of 1906 with advice from Jean Jadot and Hubert Droogmans, respectively with initial capital of 10 million, 2 million, and 3.5 million Belgian francs. The Forminière's capital, initially divided into 7,000 shares, was initially held by the Congo Free State (50 percent); Leopold's Foundation (8 percent); a group of American investors led by Thomas Fortune Ryan and Daniel Guggenheim (25 percent); and a group of Belgian investors led by the Société Générale de Belgique (SGB, 17 percent). This made Forminière an unusual case for that era of a colonial company that was directly state-controlled, even though that state was itself still private property of Leopold.

Leopold's plans were thwarted when the Free State was taken over by the Belgian Government in 1908, however, as he was not allowed to keep the Foundation of the Crown for himself. Instead, the Foundation was terminated, and its assets and liabilities were directly assumed by the Belgian state. The Belgian state thus retained a 55-percent ownership stake in the Forminière.