As a mechanical engineer, you wouldn’t expect Sasol CEO Pat Davies to break a sweat too often. But perched on a bare stage in a theatre in Johannesburg’s West Rand at Sasol’s AGM, Davies’ was clearly disconcerted by a blistering assault from his own shareholders.

The flashpoint was the R3,7bn fine levied on Sasol by the European competition authorities in October for anti-competitive practices at Sasol Wax in Europe. Continue reading ‘Fury at Sasol’s AGM over price-fixing fine’

The CSIR (the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research) is meant to pursue scientific and industrial research for the good of the country, not pander to politicians by banning its scientists from discussing issues in the public interest.

Yet, the suspension of the CSIR’s water expert, Dr Anthony Turton, last week marked a new low in surpressing freedom of academic thought. The FM asked CSIR CEO Sibusiso Sibisi why it shouldn’t be him – not Turton – who is leaving the organisation in disgrace. Continue reading ‘CSIR in the dock for pandering to politicians’

A CEO couldn’t hope for a more inglorious exit than leaving a company with a 51% drop in earnings, a R601m write-off of goodwill and a shrinking share of its market.

Though this might seem a tricky subject to bring up, Nampak CEO John Bortolan proved willing in an FM interview to tackle the gorilla in the corner head-on, rather than skirt around it. “Ideally, I would have liked to have left Nampak with [good] earnings. But realistically, I know the challenges we’ve had,” he says.
Continue reading ‘An unhappy ending for Nampak’s John Bortolan’

Absa chair Gill Marcus had clearly prepared a script to read when she was asked about the possibility of a conflict of interest in appointing Maria Ramos, whose partner is finance minister Trevor Manuel, as new CEO.

“This is something the board considered. But the board’s view was that there is a relationship between the bank and the banking regulator, which is housed in the SA Reserve Bank. There is no line of sight at all with the minister of finance,” she said last week.
Continue reading ‘Maria Ramos and Absa: policy and perception’

Investec doesn’t mind doing a spot of high-handed gloating. Well, why not when you’ve been hauled into a court case (which we wrote about earlier) damaging to your reputation, but then were finally vindicated by the Judge.

 This judgment, by Judge Meyer Joffe, gave Investec Employee Benefits (IEB) the green light to transfer across the pension business it inherited from Fedsure to Capital Alliance. Continue reading ‘Investec wins round-one of pension battle’

For the first time in recent memory, a director this week came perilously close to being voted off the board of a Top-40 JSE listed company for playing truant from board meetings.

The flashpoint was at Bidvest, where Pansy Tlakula had skipped all four meetings of the company’s transformation committee and 75% of the board meetings. When shareholders voted, all other Bidvest directors were re-elected with more than 97% of the vote — but Tlakula got only 67%. The minimum needed is 50%, but the message was clear.
Continue reading ‘Pansy in the soup at Bidvest’

At the swanky Johannesburg Country Club last week, Dave King painted a beguiling picture of a Scottish immigrant, who arrived in SA in 1976 with only R170 and raised himself by his bootstraps, only to be slapped down by a bloodthirsty tax authority seeking a high-profile scalp.

It was a soliloquy long on martyrdom (“I just want my life back”; “Sars is like a terrorist organisation”), tempered by a few concessions (“I accept I’m not squeaky clean” and “I should have disclosed details of my trusts”).

But as King sketched this scenario while waiters laid out the sushi, there was something disturbing about this protest: was this not a man who has allegedly tried to cheat the system and other taxpayers and was squealing now that he’d been caught? Continue reading ‘Fight Club: what Dave King’s tax fight means’

 SA’s apparent inability to expeditiously prosecute corporate high-flyers accused of dodgy dealings stands in sharp contrast to overseas. The executives at the heart of the Enron scandal, for example, were dealt a swift legal blow for their role in the spectacular 2001 collapse of the energy trading utility that lost investors billions.

Within five years, chairman Kenneth Lay and CEO Jeffrey Skilling were convicted of intent to commit securities and wire fraud. Lay died of a heart attack before he was sentenced; Skilling is serving a 24-year jail term. Continue reading ‘Delays dog South Africa’s corporate trials’

In poker terms, a number of Sappi’s shareholders seem to believe its R9,7bn (€750m) purchase of Finnish paper company M-Real is the equivalent of going all-in on a pair of 3s.

Under this deal, Sappi gets four M-Real’s paper mills in Europe and the order books and intellectual property of M-Real’s coated graphic paper business. Sappi will then account for 18% of the European coated graphic paper industry. But at the shareholder vote last Monday, Sappi got anything but a ringing endorsement of its plans. Continue reading ‘Sappi’s deal doesn’t look good on paper’

One of the sweetest deals in the legal fraternity must be the gig as lawyer to Investec.

Last week, Investec was back in another bruising court battle that saw it spar for five days with 11 pension funds in Johannesburg’s High Court. Investec knows the dust-yellowed windows of the dilapidated court well after clashing with shareholders of Brett Kebble’s former company JCI in a seperate case dating back to 2006.

As last weeks’ case stemmed from Investec’s 2001 takeover of Arnold Basserabie’s stricken insurer Fedsure, CEO Stephen Koseff might want to rethink doing deals with companies in trouble. Continue reading ‘Investec’s at odds with pensioners’