History of Steel Giant Group
Fanie Jansen Van Vuuren, the current chairman of Steel Giant, joined his father’s business Gary Staalhandel in 1958, which merged with Jo's Steel and became Steel Giant in 1969. Fanie was appointed as managing director of the joint venture. Its main business was that of a steel retailer with a sales network that spread across the country. In the pursuit of increasing margins, Fanie bought land in Boksburg, Johannesburg, to build the Steel Giant head office site. In 1974, the Jansen Van Vuuren family bought out the other business partners and formed what is today the The Giant Group. In the late 1970’s it was decided to expand globally. The Giant Group began selling steel to Malawi, Zaire, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The Giant Group opened trading offices in Houston in the United States of America, and London, in 1977. One of the group’s most significant acquisitions took place in 1982. The Giant Group took over one of South Africa’s largest commodity trading companies. This allowed the Giant Group to market the steel products of Iscor, now ArcelorMittal, to the Far East. This joint venture between Giant Group and ArcelorMittal in 1996 established Giant International.
In addition to its service centre business in South Africa, the Giant Group also has service centres in the United States of America and Israel. Giant service Centres USA is one of the 10 largest service centre businesses in the United States of America and is the Giant Group’s largest operation. The history of Giant Service Centres is mirrored in that of the wider group until the mid 70’s. In 1978 the group acquired Rikar Engineering, its first move into the service centre business. Shortly after, it acquired PG Latan. In the early 80’s, the group acquired Dolf Steel, Rand Steels and Blekser Steel followed by a spate of acquisitions from 1988 to 1991. At about the same time, those entities that were wholly owned were consolidated into the fore runner of what is today Giant Service Centres – a single trading entity in South Africa. In the late 90’s the group acquired Tagersta, consolidating its position in the stainless steel market. In 2000, all operations were rebranded under the Giant Steel name. In 2005 Giant Steel entered into a Black Economic Empowerment transaction, restructuring its operations and introducing a 50.5% empowerment grouping.
