Capitec chief sells up as BEE deal is queried
Stassen offloads stock ahead of issue RIAAN Stassen, Capitec Bank’s chief executive, sold almost all his stock in the company in the 12 months ahead of the announcement of a discounted rights offer as bad debts increased.
Bloomberg reported yesterday that Stassen had divested 422 780 shares for R88.4 million in the past year and had just 2 539 left, according to data compiled by the JSE and Bloomberg.
As it was reported that 70 percent of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg rated the stock a buy, parliamentary opposition parties called for an investigation into the role of two staterun financial institutions, the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) and the Public Investment Corporation (PIC), in underpinning a recent controversial empowerment deal with Capitec Bank.
The Mail & Guardian reported on Friday that Coral Lagoon, a consortium assembled by ANC fundraiser Zwelibanzi “Miles” Nzama, had bought an empowerment stake in Capitec using funds provided by the IDC. Among the beneficiaries was the Batho-Batho Trust, which the newspaper said had made large donations to the ANC.
While the bank has denied prior knowledge of any ANC links to the deal, Cope economic development spokesman Smuts Ngonyama told Business Report it was totally inappropriate for the ruling party to be associated with, or indirectly benefit from, the deal.
The Freedom Front Plus wants the deal to be investigated for alleged “fronting”.
Tim Harris, DA finance spokesman, said the deal appeared to be “another example of an ANC fundraising exercise where broad-based black economic empowerment [BEE] has simply been used as a fig leaf”. This had, he believed, “perverted and dishonoured” the spirit of broad-based BEE.
Both he and Ngonyama questioned the role played by the IDC, which promotes black industrial development, and the PIC, which manages state pension funds, in the deal.
Ngonyama, a former ANC spokesman before switching to Cope, said a previous state deal involving Telkom, from which he benefited, was not similar.
Ngonyama said the ruling party “has to be neutral and objective” in the regulation of the corporate world “especially the financial institutions”.
He said the Elephant Consortium’s Telkom share deal in 2004 had been funded by three private banks and the PIC had played no role until afterwards.
Harris said the IDC and PIC had “serious questions to answer”. DA parliamentary leader Lindiwe Mazibuko has asked the public protector to probe their involvement in the deal.