Raised in a poor rural area, Patrice Motsepe lays claim to two firsts. He is both South Africa's first black billionaire and in January 2012, he became the first African to sign Bill Gates and Warren Buffet's Giving Pledge. His publicly traded mining conglomerate, African Rainbow Minerals (ARM) has interests in platinum, nickel, chrome, iron, manganese, coal, copper and gold. He also holds a stake in Sanlam, a publicly traded financial services company. Motsepe trained as a lawyer and became the first black partner at the Bowman Gilfillan law firm in Johannesburg and then started a contracting business doing mine scut work. He bought low-producing gold mine shafts in 1994 and turned them profitable. Motsepe benefited from South Africa's Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) laws, which mandate that companies be at least 26% black-owned in order to get a government mining license.