E E P R S N IO T S U I A C Q E O H ’ S

When EOH’S stock began falling, it triggered the forced sale of their shares.

Mackay, in particular, had to sell R130m worth of stock. EOH’S finance director, John King, was forced to sell shares worth R16m.

Investors were furious. “If I had a board of directors doing that I would fire them. It puts the share price at risk,” said Just One Lap founder Simon Brown at the time.

Cy Jacobs, founder of 36One Asset Management, said it was “totally undesirable” for directors to take derivative positions on shares in their companies.

Seen alongside the fallout from the Keating deal, it painted the picture of a company whose board has no real grasp of the chaos happening inside the company.

Shareholders are evidently seething, if the vote at April’s AGM is anything to go by.

In all, 38% of shareholders voted against re-electing Mackay and audit committee chair Rob Sporen, while

44% voted against its remuneration policy. 15% even voted against reelecting Mayet as CEO. It was a major protest vote.

It clearly rankled that in a year in which EOH’S share price imploded, the amount paid to executive directors actually rose from R16.1m to R20.1m — R6.8m of which was made up of bonuses.

Despite it all Mayet is sticking to his tune that EOH has done nothing wrong and that its only sin has been “poor communication”.

Mayet points to the findings of a “review” of the company’s processes, conducted by law firm ENS, which cleared it of any wrongdoing in any of the scandals.

This is significant because ENS’S remit was wide: besides providing recommendations of how to improve governance at EOH, it was also asked to assess the risk to the company of the Keating deal, and whether anyone in EOH was complicit.

Asked what ENS’S review had found, Mayet says: “If anything, they found a little bit of ill discipline from internal process, such as