Rand Mines, the South African mining house, originated as H. Ekstein & Co. in 1887 and was soon nicknamed 'The Corner House'. The founders were Alfred Beit, Hermann Ekstein and Julius Wernher. They formed Rand Mines as a financial company in 1893 to help pioneer the first deep level mines with assistance from the Rothschilds. They developed East Rand Proprietary Mine (ERPM) and Durban Deep, both destined for a hundred-year life. In 1975 Rand Mines became part of the Barlow Rand industrial group. In 1992 the mining interests were separated out as Randgold & Exploration (Randgold) in a restructuring of the group. In 1994 Randgold became a pure gold mining house with a portfolio of marginal gold mines. By 1997 this was rationalised into three South African mining companies (Durban Deep, Harmony and Crown Consolidated Recoveries) and an offshore gold company, Randgold Resources, operating the Syama mine in Mali.