Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Questions over joint venture
Comair’s executives in dodgy deals
PRIVATE airline company, Comair, has said it was confident in its decision to enter into a joint venture with a company whose executives remain under investigation for alleged business hijacking, defrauding their investors and failing to pay employees.
Earlier this year, Independent Media reported on digital empowerment firm Curve Technology Group, and its eventual winding up.The company’s main subsidiary was forced to shut its doors after claims from investors that they had been defrauded.
The company was also under investigation by the Hawks for the alleged hijacking of another company, Sector 5 holdings, whose director Johan du Preez claimed he was robbed of R3million.
At the time of the accusations, executives at Curve, Fred Baumhardt, Amanda de Beer and Craig Jones, denied any criminality and blamed cash-flow problems as the reason for why employees had not been paid for months on end.
In August, Comair announced it had entered into a joint venture with IT Company, Infinea, to create a technology business called Nacelle.
The venture is meant to be a service provider for aviation and related sectors, providing IT operations and support among other services. However, it appears the same executive team are running both Infinea and Nacelle, with Baumhardt listed as Infinea’s CEO, Jones as its technical director, and De Beer as a director at Nacelle.
While the companies involved did not initially state how much was invested into the venture, it was later revealed that almost R100 million had been used as part of the initial phases of the project.
This week, Independent Media approached Comair for comment about exact investment figures.
“Comair is confident in the joint venture and the viability of Nacelle. We’d suggest you discuss Curve’s operations directly with Mr Baumhardt,” the statement read.
Nacelle and Infinea were also approached for comment, and no response had been received by the time of publication.