WITH Bonatla now the subject of a Financial Services Board (FSB) insider trading probe, it seems every deal announced in January as part of its revival plan has fallen through.

Bonatla, founded by enigmatic former history lecturer Niki Vontas, is still suspended from the JSE. Investors who bought its renaissance story must be feeling anything but confident.

In January, Bonatla announced eight deals worth R350m, capped by the purchase of the Durban Point Development Company from Malaysian firm Renong for R150m. Investors pounced, and Bonatla’s share price vaulted 23% on the day.

Since then other deals have been trumpeted, including Bonatla’s R131m purchase of Dalefern Properties. But last week, buried in the footnotes of its six-month financial results, Bonatla said simply that six of the eight deals announced in January had “lapsed”.

In May, Bonatla used the footnotes of another announcement to reveal that the other two deals — Dalefern and Gemini Moon 177 — had also been axed. It has also emerged that related parties were involved in some of those deals. For example, Gemini Moon 177 is owned by Vontas’s wife, Carolyn Douglas.

Douglas was a Bonatla director until March, and she still runs Bonatla’s asset manager, CDA Property Consultants. Vontas himself isn’t allowed to be a Bonatla director (due to his sequestration in 2004), but he is a consultant to CDA, and still seems to be a guiding light at Bonatla. To complete this circle, Bonatla’s CEO is Robin Rainer, Douglas’s father.

The collapse of the deals hasn’t escaped the regulator’s attention. Two weeks ago, the FSB’s insider trading directorate said it was probing trades in Bonatla between January and May.

FSB head of market abuse Gerhard van Deventer says Bonatla is being probed for the deals that never happened. “That’s a bit suspicious to us. So we’re looking at trading patterns over that time,” he says.

However, Rainer says he actually asked the FSB to conduct this inquiry because of concerns over one of his business partners, but he refuses to give details. “You tell me why the share price went up, I’d love to know,” he says.

But that’s not all. Last week, Bonatla announced two new deals: to buy Scottwaal Beleggings and Morgan Creek Properties from Gemini Moon.

If that sounds familiar, it should. Scottwaal Beleggings was one of the deals that Bonatla was meant to wrap up in January, and which “lapsed”. Now it has re-emerged, at R1,5m more than the original January price of R6m.

The Morgan Creek deal is equally fascinating. It turns out Morgan Creek owns properties in KwaZulu Natal which Bonatla was meant to have bought in January from Gemini Moon, in one of the “lapsed” deals. And the directors of Morgan Creek are none other than Rainer and Bonatla director Max Brodie.

Rainer says these deals are similar to the ones announced in January, but “have been restructured”. On the related parties, he points to a footnote in the announcement that discloses this fact.

But why should shareholders have any more faith this time, especially as Bonatla investors will be paying for properties owned by Rainer’s daughter?

Rainer says he is focused on injecting assets into Bonatla, so the JSE suspension can be lifted. “We believe that Bonatla has a viable and vigorous future … provided it can proceed with the transactions it has in mind unhindered.”

He also still holds out hope for the Durban Point deal, and says “we are in renewed negotiations with Renong”.

Recently, KPMG quit as its corporate sponsor and last week Bontatla’s company secretary Elise Waldeck also quit (“for personal reasons”, says Rainer).

It’s true Bonatla hasn’t had an easy time, but that does seem largely its own fault. The collapse (and re-emergence) of these epic deals won’t do its credibility any good.