Stratcom style tricks laid bare
Campaign to torpedo Sagarmatha listing on JSE
INDEPENDENT Media has evidence that senior executives of its competitor Tiso Blackstar had plotted to torpedo Sagarmatha Technologies’ listing on the JSE. The evidence specifically alludes to attempts to influence critical stakeholders to stop the listing due to Independent Media’s involvement in Sagarmatha.
The evidence points to a dirty tricks campaign akin to Stratcom which the apartheid regime’s security apparatus used to demonise Struggle icon Winnie Madikizela-Mandela – but in this instance, the campaign was aimed at Independent Media and its executive chairman, Dr Iqbal Survé.
The JSE approved the Pre-Listing Statement of Sagarmatha on March 28. On April 3, and for the next few weeks, Tiso Blackstar launched a series of articles to deliberately misrepresent the financial position of Independent Media as “technically insolvent”, the company said in statements.
Tiso Blackstar – formerly Times Media Group (TMG), is a direct competitor of Independent Media and publishes Sunday Times, Business Day, Sowetan and the online news platform TimesLive.
Business Day outgoing editor Tim Cohen revealed Tiso Blackstar’s motive in his column written after the JSE stopped the listing by suggesting that the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) should force a merger between Tiso Blackstar and Independent Media.
Ahead of the listing, Independent Media said the PIC was unduly pressured by journalists from Tiso Blackstar, Daily Maverick and Amabhungane. The PIC eventually succumbed to pressure and declined to invest in Sagarmatha.
Sagarmatha Technologies said in a statement that despite the PIC’s withdrawal, it managed to raise R4.2 billion – easily satisfying the onerous listing requirements by the JSE. The normal listing requirement is R500 million, but the JSE insisted on a R3bn requirement.
Cohen’s opinion piece followed of a slew of correspondence by journalists in Tiso Blackstar employ directed to advisors, regulators and the PIC. The PIC has revealed it wasn’t investing in Sagarmatha shortly after the listing was withdrawn.
On April 13, the day Sagarmatha Technologies was supposed to list, Cohen wrote: “The PIC needs to start thinking about forcing a merger, otherwise a whole bunch of SA’s long-loved newspapers are going to to disappear pretty soon.”
Tiso Blackstar’s financial woes are well-documented. Its share price has fallen from R25 to R4 recently. This week it
de-listed from the London Stock Exchange.
Tiso Blackstar’s campaign included articles by Ann Crotty and Sam Sole, writing under the investigation unit of AmaBhungane. Independent Media has highlighted 29 misleading inaccuracies about Crotty and Sole’s reporting on the listing – the most damaging being that Independent Media was “technically insolvent”.
Independent Media has shareholder loans – all of whom have a residual interest in the business. Tiso Backstar has bank debt of more than R1.5bn.
Yesterday Dr Survé said it was eerie how this Tiso Blackstar campaign had been revealed in the week that Struggle legend Madikizela-Mandela was buried.
“Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, in one of the last appearances, spoke about Stratcom, and the head of Stratcom, Vic McPherson, indicated that at least 40 journalists were on the payroll of the apartheid state. Winnie was their principal target.
“The aim was to vilify Winnie so that her credibility would be destroyed and she would have no influence in the course of the country’s future,” said Dr Survé.
News that Tiso Blackstar had actively attempted to scupper the listing sketched a pattern reminiscent of Stratcom’s tactics, he said.
Dr Survé said the dirty tricks campaigns extended to the professionals and regulators involved in the listing, including advisers and auditors.
“The patterns that are emerging on the attacks on Independent Media and the Sekunjalo Group and myself reek of Stratcom. This has all the hallmarks of Stratcom and dirty tricks.
“First, in the words of McPherson, it was important to mix the truth with disinformation and lies so that the story is believed by the reader. Winnie mentioned this was done in the ratio of 70% truth to 30% lies,” said Dr Survé.
He said there were commercial reasons but also political reasons Tiso Blackstar wanted to stop Independent Media. Independent Media offered a space to tell an alternative narrative that otherwise wouldn’t exist, Dr Survé said.
Commenting on the Stratcom similarities, he said: “The past becomes the present to determine the future.”
Approached, Tiso Blackstar chief executive Andrew Bonamour denied he had asked his executives to stop Sagarmatha.
“No, not at all. Why would we do that?. We share distribution. Why would we want to harm the business?. We have no contact with the PIC and we have no contact with the JSE. Our journalists are totally independent. We have a strict policy. I have no interaction with the PIC. I can promise you now it is nothing.”
Asked to explain what he meant, Cohen said: “It’s my view that the newspaper industry needs consolidation. The industry is not in a good shape.”
About the multiple misleading inaccuracies in the articles, including that Independent Media is “technically insolvent”, Ann Crotty said: “I wrote based on the 212 pre-listing statement. It was an amazing amount of information.”
She denied harassing advisers and auditors. “How could I harass regulators? I think I did ask them (Vunani) about their involvement about a week ago,” she said.
Said Sole: “It is not for me to respond now… Independent has already won. As far as I am aware, a point was made that Sekunjalo/Independent Media was technically insolvent.
“Whether or not the position is the same with Independent Media, of which Sekunjalo is 55% shareholder, we do not know because we haven’t seen Independent Media figures.
“All I can say is there is not a great deal of detail that has been supplied in relation to what is allegedly incorrect in the article.”
TWENTY-four years ago South Africans voted in the country’s first democratic elections. A watershed, 1994 brought a sense of hope and patriotism to the nation.
In what was described as a miracle, South Africa stepped back from the brink of civil war. An immoral and racist regime had preceded democracy.
It’s ruthless security apparatus violated, tortured and killed activists whose desire was a better country. Apartheid’s security branch did not function on its own.
It had many tentacles and was aided and abetted by various elements. Apartheid also ensured transformation of the business sector was non existent.
People of colour were denied opportunity to prosper.
Many achievements, economic and otherwise came post 1994. We’ve come a long way, but many hurdles still exist – one being transformation. Correcting the wrongs of the past was never going to be a painless exercise or a walk in the park.
Today countless black-owned enterprises are run successfully despite the odds against them.
Transformation comes to them naturally – naturally because their owners have a deep understanding of a South Africa pre-1994.
Importantly, these business are successful because in essence they function on honesty and sound business principles and ethics.
The same cannot be said of some white-owned businesses – Tiso Blackstar being an example.
What the leadership of this company did to torpedo the listing on the JSE of an opponent is nothing short of scandalous.
Yes, the business environment is rough and robust, but employing tactics akin to apartheid’s security branch denies you the right to be respected as a business – just like apartheid denied black people their right to dignity.
Like apartheid’s security apparatus, Tiso Blackstar is also aided and abetted in it’s strategy of sowing disinformation about an opponent whose transformation track record is second to none. It illustrates how ethically poor it has become.
What will it take for business owners like Tiso Blackstar’s leadership to accept that this type of behaviour robs them of being respected by their peers?
It is because of they can’t accept that a competitor can be smarter?
Or is it because the opponent is black?
If the answer is yes on both counts, Tiso Blackstar’s owners will do well to accept these situations would not be changing.
They must examine their company’s moral bankruptcy.
They must also learn to accept that just like apartheid was wrong, brought sheer misery to its inventors, and failed, so is Tiso Blackstar’s dishonest campaign against a rival.