No concord on art at AGM
The sale of a valuable art collection owned by La Concorde is probably unlikely, but that didn’t stop shareholders from wading in
The AGM of La Concorde Holdings — the unlisted company created to house the leftover assets after the sale of KWV’S liquor business last year — should have been an occasion to canvass support for a new strategic direction for the cash-flush vehicle.
Instead, some shareholders tried to paint La Concorde executives into a corner around the fate of a valuable art collection.
La Concorde is expected to detail proposals for the injection of new operating assets into the company within three to four months. La Concorde will also be split into two companies. One will house the heritage assets that include its head office in Paarl’s Main Street, the
Laborie wine estate and other properties as well as an extensive local art collection. The other will retain the proceeds from the KWV asset sale to Viv Imerman’s Vasari Group, and acquire new operating assets.
In Paarl last week, however, much of the proceedings were taken up by a debate around the fate of KWV’S art collection — which is mostly on display in the La Concorde head office.
La Concorde is ultimately controlled by empowerment conglomerate Hosken Consolidated Investments (HCI), which has clearly indicated a preference to inject new operating assets into the part of La Concorde that holds around R1.2bn in cash and Investec Bank-backed promissory notes.
The heritage assets that some shareholders are fixated with represent less than R200m of the R1.4bn net asset value.
In a brief presentation to the assembled shareholders, La Concorde CEO André van der Veen disclosed a valuation of R42m on the art collection provided by fine art auctioneers and consultants Strauss & Co. The portfolio includes works by renowned artists like Irma Stern, JH Pierneef, Gregoire Boonzaier, Maggie Laubser, Carl Buchner, David Botha and Francois Krige.
He reckoned the bulk of the value in the collection resided in Irma Stern’s “Harvest” painting — a work possibly worth up to R20m, though some pundits say it could fetch as much as R40m.
La Concorde shareholder