The Globalisation of South African Conglomerates, 1990–2009

China, Brazil, India, Russia, Malaysia, Turkey and South Africa have added significantly to the growth of outward developing country foreign direct investment (OFDI) in recent years. These trends reveal emerging capabilities in companies from outside the developed world and they have prompted several questions: How do developing countries’ firms succeed in entering global markets? Do these firms improve their competitiveness through OFDI? This article investigates the OFDI phenomenon in South Africa. It starts by exploring some theoretical considerations, then provides an overview of internationalisation trends, and finally sets out revealing case studies of the most successful South African firms. The article shows that, although no single homogeneous internationalisation strategy emerged for all successful South African conglomerates, the common denominator was excellent entrepreneurial and management capacity.