Felicia ’ s Moon goes down
FORMER talk show host Felicia Mabuza-Suttle has pulled the plug on her famous entertainment eatery, Back Of The Moon.
Mabuza-Suttle, who hosted South Africa’s first TV audience talk show in the 1990s, liquidated the company on Tuesday.
The US-based Mabuza-Suttle lodged an application in the Johannesburg High Court to have her company Fine Cuisine and Entertainment Limited, trading as Back of The Moon, liquidated.
A terminated lease agreement, an eviction order, a R1m debt to the South African Revenue Service, unsettled bills to auditors, a soured relationship with business partner Mohammed Dada and a dispute with her landlord over assets all seemed to have taken a toll on Mabuza-Suttle.
It took Judge Ratha Mokgoatlheng less than five minutes to bring down the curtain on the upmarket and popular Gold Reef City Casino joint in the south of Jozi.
Mabuza-Suttle held a 57% stake while Dada was a 43% shareholder.
Back Of The Moon provided entertainment and fine cuisine to the who’s who of the entertainment industry and big business.
It was managed by Dada while Mabuza-Suttle took care of her other vast business and TV interests in the US.
In her court papers, she says it became impossible for her as a permanent resident of the US to actively participate in the operational affairs of the business and handed that responsibility to Dada.
Mabuza-Suttle says there were periods when the company failed to meet all its financial obligations as a result of an “adverse economic climate ”.
She says there were periods when Back Of The Moon incurred arrears on its monthly rentals.
“The landlord terminated our lease agreement and asked us to vacate the premises by no later than January 8 2012,” she says in court papers.
Auditors who were hired to look into the problem slapped the pair with a R61 000 bill that is unpaid.
Their 57 staff members have been left in the lurch.
But she says she hopes the staff will not be prejudiced and says Dada had not responded to her offer to surrender her shares in exchange for her release from all obligations to any creditors.
“Despite the best efforts of Dada and I, we have been unable to prevent the inevitable failure of the business,” she concedes.
Dada was absent from court and was also not represented when the draft order was made in favour of Mabuza-Suttle.