Huge holes in SuraPure claims

PONZI SCHEME: STILL OWES INVESTORS UP TO R299M

The micro-retailer, found to be a Ponzi scheme, is in liquidation with about R299 million owed.

Some claimants have to again complete forms as liquidation drags on.

SuraPure Drinks, the micro-retailer found to be a Ponzi scheme by the South African Reserve Bank (Sarb) in 2014, is in liquidation with about R299 million still owed to thousands of investors.

Sarb declared SuraPure to be an illegal deposit-taking scheme in October 2014 after an investigation by EY found that the company and its director, Cornelius Petrus van der Merwe, had contravened the Banks Act.

Slow motion

This declaration came seven months after FNB fi rst froze SuraPure’s bank account.

SuraPure was placed into business rescue in April 2014 by a resolution of its investors.

Harry Kaplan of First City Administrators was one of the appointed business rescue practitioners (BRP) and an independent auditor, Steven Ambrose, assisted him.

As far back as August 2014, the BRPs found no reasonable prospect of rescuing SuraPure and applied to the court to have SuraPure placed into liquidation.

However, SuraPure remained under business rescue for more than a year after that, while the Sarb appointed KPMG as “repayment administrators”, tasked with compiling a list of investors.

This was despite the fact that First City Administrators had already collected in the region of 10 000 claim forms during the business rescue process.

KPMG determined in February 2015 that SuraPure was insolvent.

Just R65 million is estimated to be recoverable from SuraPure.

The lower amount owed to investors, meanwhile, is R94.5 million, according to KPMG, while the higher amount is more than R299 million, depending on which reading of case law is adopted.

The scheme was placed into liquidation in October 2015 and Zeenath Kajee of Westrust Pty Ltd was appointed SuraPure’s liquidator.

Despite more than 18 months of work, the BRPs have yet to be paid and Westrust has made no moves to collect the documentation, Ambrose said.

“I’m not overly impressed with the speed and efficiency of their services in this matter,” he added.

Some investors will now have to complete claim forms a third time, as claims submitted to the BRP and KPMG do not comply with the requirements of the Companies and Insolvency Acts, according to Kajee.

Westrust has received fewer than 100 claims so far.

Clearing decks

Until Westrust is satisfied that it has received most, if not all, of the claims, it cannot distribute any money, Kajee explained.

According to Ambrose, of the about 18 000 original SuraPure investors, between 8 000 and 9 000 are no longer owed any money. SuraPure creditors can e-mail

zkajee@westrust.co.za for claim forms and further information.