Sygnia chief executive under severe racism attack
SAGARMATHA Technology Limited rejects with contempt the insinuation by Sygnia chief executive, Magda Wierzycka, that Sagarmatha Technologies should not have been considered by the JSE to list.
Last week, at the JSE annual meeting, the Sygnia chief executive claimed Sagarmatha’s valuation was too high and its profitability too low to be listed on the JSE.
Has Wierzycka even read the Sagarmatha prospectus? We doubt it.
If we follow Wierzycka’s logic, then companies such as Amazon, Uber Snapchat, Tencent and Facebook and Fitbit should have no value and should not be listed anywhere.
This shows the folly of Wierzycka’s logic. Sagarmatha went through an extremely intense and rigorous valuation process, more so than any other company. We went well above all the requirements to be able to list on JSE.
Wierzycka conveniently and selectively ignores that internationally renowned Redwood Valuations Partners in San Francisco valued Sagarmatha Technologies.
Furthermore, Sagarmatha’s valuation was not only validated and substantiated by Redwood, but also by the University of the District of Columbia’s Faculty of Finance, by professors who are experts in technology innovation.
It is laughable that someone like Wierzycka, who runs Sygnia, which can at best be described as a fourth-grade asset management company, is questioning some of the top valuation entities in the world.
For someone who leads an asset management company, she has never bothered to engage with the chief executives of Sagarmatha, the management team or any of the board of directors, to understand the valuation of the business.
Had Wierzycka bothered to read the Sagarmatha Pre-Listing statement, she would have seen that the Redwood valuation is included and that the listing was priced within that range.
Her statements about Sagarmatha are defamatory and undermine a highly respected audit committee and board, who spent many months engaging in the valuation with highly regarded valuation entities in preparation for the listing.
By the JSE’s own admission Sagarmatha had to meet requirements over and above their normal listing requirements.
According to the JSE listing requirement, companies without a profit history only have to raise R500 million in equity. In Sagarmatha’s case, this was R3 billion.
What Wierzycka ignores completely is that Sagarmatha was able to raise more than R4.2bn (without the PIC) until, at the last minute, the JSE withdrew the listing on so-called administrative grounds.
The above investors, along with members of our International Advisory Board, are some of the wealthiest and most successful business leaders in the world today.
It is laughable that a minnow and publicity-seeking asset manager like Wierzycka thinks she can cast aspersions on successful international business leaders and investors.
Her irrational and unwarranted comments have made her the darling of the destructive oppositional media groups – Tiso Blackstar, and peripheral websites like the Daily Maverick, and the Naspers group – only because she attacks the shareholders of the Independent Media Group.
South Africans should remember that this is the same Magda Wierzycka who took to social media on two recent occasions and insulted black people, the majority of South Africans.
Her insulting tweet – if every household employs a cleaner or gardener, it would save South Africa – was rightly met with contempt and derision.
But this gives a clear insight into her thoughts.
In Magda Wierzycka’s mind, a black woman like myself, who has a number of qualifications, should not be a deputy chairperson of a listed company, or even in business, but should confine me to being a tea girl.
Black people should only be domestic workers or mine workers. Black people should not have successful JSE-listed companies.
In her mind, black people should not own successful JSE listed companies, and should not be in board rooms for anything else than for cosmetic purposes to serve her BEE requirements.
She should well remember that the start to her success was via controversial businessperson Mzi Khumalo, and how she undermined him in the way she took over his business. This pattern continues today.
It is clear to Sagarmatha that Tiso Blackstar publications like Business Day are using Wierzycka’s slanderous comments to further their own agenda.
It is interesting that Wierzycka is pointing fingers at shareholders of listed companies losing money when share price declines, when her own company’s share price has lost about 40 percent of its value in recent times.
She surely owes her investors an explanation. Perhaps she should focus on her own business, instead of seeking publicity on the back of black business.
We must not forget that she had most recently failed to list a cryptocurrency company on the JSE, which makes her motivation even more transparent. She was, in effect, using Sagarmatha as a scapegoat to try and bully the JSE to list her cryptocurrency company.
One wonders if the JSE will put her company through the same rigorous scrutiny that they put Sagarmatha.
Wierzycka must understand that she is not dealing with a black company that is intimidated by her covert racism. She serves as a propaganda arm for the detractors, our competitors of Independent Media and others. This does not give her the right to belittle Sagarmatha and/or any other company.
Furthermore, Sagarmatha will seek a full transcript from the JSE of what transpired at the AGM and will not hesitate to act against Magda for the defamatory comments about our company and the aspersions she has cast on our board and our listing process. We reserve all our rights in this instance.