No cash back for SuraPure investors

SIX MONTHS: FED-UP INVESTORS SAY IT’S BEEN A LONG WAIT

Fed-up SuraPure investors say they’re still waiting for the money more than six months after the Reserve Bank ordered it to repay investors.

SuraPure Drinks, the fraudulent drinks retailer that owes 18 000 investors about R87 million, has yet to repay any investors more than six months after it was instructed to do so.

And information from Reserve Bank-appointed repayment administrators KPMG is not forthcoming, says Steven Ambrose, investor and owner of Strategy Worx Consulting.

‘Not a peep’

“We handed over all our documents to KPMG – including bank records, accounting records, details from the SuraPure online platform – and we’ve not heard another peep,” he says.

Ambrose is a chartered accountant who undertook an extensive investigation into SuraPure’s business affairs on behalf of business rescue practitioners (BRPs) First City Administrators.

SuraPure was placed into business rescue in April 2014.

Ambrose and the BRPs suggested in August that SuraPure be wound up in business rescue or liquidated.

Critically, Ambrose found that SuraPure’s liabilities outweighed its assets by millions of rands and that it was far from matching online stock orders of R184 million with physical stock sales of at most R5.7 million.

Investors in SuraPure could either resell physical stock themselves, mostly bottled water and juices, or allow SuraPure to resell stock on their behalf, in which case they were promised a 120% return in 60 days. The vast majority of investors seem to have opted for the latter option.

More than six months later, KPMG confirms 1 362 investors have phoned the helpline but few have submitted documentation to support their claims.

First City Administrators, meanwhile, has stored 10 000 claim forms, according to Ambrose.

Business called the KPMG hotline and was told by a call-centre agent, “We are still waiting for the (South African) Reserve Bank (SARB) to tell us when to repay people. They will inform us when they are ready to repay… We are waiting for them (SARB) to tell us how much is going to be paid.”

KPMG director, Déan Friedman says: “The solution that may be pursued is currently under consideration. The time of any repayment administration process is determined by the complexity of the matter, the amount of work necessitated by the circumstances and events of the matter and various inter-dependencies that need to settle.”

‘No urgency’

Friedman says KPMG has gathered “further and other information” on SuraPure. “Between EY and us I think they (SARB) had an 80% view of everything. It just seems it shouldn’t take them as long as it has. There’s just no urgency,” says Ambrose.

Attorneys acting for SuraPure’s Van der Merwe confirm he is in contact with KPMG.

The attorneys, who prefer to remain anonymous, have fi led a leave to appeal the ruling that SuraPure contravened the Banks Act and wait for the application to be heard in the South Gauteng High Court.

The SARB did not respond to requests for comment. Mogul