In the 1950s the discovery of bauxite on the Western Cape area saw mining leases for large areas given to Comalco and Alcan.
As a corporate and securities law specialist he was involved in several important and complex Australian corporate cases: the 1995 Westpac Challenge Bank merger, the NRMA insurance demutualisation, Comalco's takeover of Rio Tinto and the Australian Stock Exchange demutualisation and self-listing which was a world first.
The present town was constructed mainly by Comalco (now called Rio Tinto Alcan), a large aluminium company, which began making trial shipments of bauxite to Japan in 1962.