Tweet

Richard Spoor

8 Mar, 11 tweets, 2 min read

Here is another doozie. The business rescue practitioners (BRP) of Optimum Collieries have proposed and the “creditors” of Optimum have accepted a proposal from Templar Capital Limited, a Bermuda based company to take over the Gupta owned mine.

Turns out that Templar comprises erstwhile Gupta cronies. Details to follow.

Centaur Ventures Ltd (CVL)is a company based in Bermuda that marketed the coal from the Gupta controlled Optimum Colliery. CVL claims that it advanced $75 million to the Gupta owned Optimum. CVL borrowed the money it says it advanced to Optimum from Griffin General Trading LLC.

Griffin is based in the UAE. It’s directors were a Mr Singhala and a Mr McGowan. Mr Singhala is Atul Gupta’s son. His BFF is Akash Garg who married Veka Gupta at Sun City in 2013. Akash Garg owned 50% of CVL.

So what we have here is a Gupta company (Griffin) lending money to another Gupta Company (CVL) lending money to another Gupta company (Optimum). Where did the money come from? Likely from the ZAR 660 advanced by Eskom to Gupta owned Tegeta Resources, which bought Optimum.

Did CVL advance any money to Optimum? The BRP accepts that they did, but there is no reason to believe this and it’s unlikely. Anyway this (imaginary?) advance by CVL put it in the driving seat as the biggest creditor when Optimum was placed in business rescue.

The next biggest creditor was Eskom, its claim against Optimum was magically inflated from some R300+ million to over a billion, by agreement with CVL. Again the claim was never interrogated but CVL and the BRP had no problem with it.

So CVL is in the drying seat when it comes to the business rescue, they propose, and the two big (fake?) creditors accept that Templar, will acquire Optimum. Templar is a vehicle for CVL directed by Mr Mc Gowan, that is in hock to Griffin which is controlled by the Guptas.

Templar gets 100% of the voting shares in Optimum, other creditors including Eskom get 20cents in the rand, which is OK by Eskom because they likely inflated their claim by agreement with CVL, or non voting shares that will pay out something like 40c in the rand out of profits.

The BRP process is a farce. As I see it, the only winners are the Guptas, other creditors and the workers are screwed. Worst of all legitimate bidders were worked over by a toxic alliance between Eskom, the Guptas and the BRP.

Look, I may be wrong, but this is my take on a complex set of facts engineered to be that way. Off shore companies in tax havens like the UAE, the Bahamas and Dubai, playing us all like the fools that we are. Government has neither the skills nor capacity to interrogate anything.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

More from @Richard_Spoor

Richard Spoor

@Richard_Spoor

8 Mar

So Australian coal miner South 32 wants out of SA. This is not surprising because it has unfunded mine rehabilitation liabilities of some R34 billion. So what better way than to pass this liability on to Gwede’s bestie and BEE industrialist of note, Mike Teke of Seriti Resources.

The asking price is a very modest R100 million up front and a 50% share of the free cash flow generated till 2024.
So how are Mike and South 32 going to make a profit out of this transaction? Simple really, they will make a killing out of Eskom and electricity users.

South 32’s Ifalethu colliery supplies coal to Eskom’s Duvha power station. On paper they make a loss of R65/ton supplied. So what Mike will do is ask for a R470/ton increase in the price that is worth about R68 billion over the life of the contract. See photo below.

Read 12 tweets

Richard Spoor

@Richard_Spoor

28 Feb

The Lindsay Dentlinger affair has less to do with Lindsay Dentlinger’s behaviour than it has to do with people using the opportunity to signal their own victimhood and moral virtue. quillette.com/2021/02/27/the…

“Newly published research indicates that people who more frequently signal their victimhood (whether real, exaggerated, or false) are more likely to lie and cheat for material gain and denigrate others as a means to get ahead.”

“Victimhood signaling is associated with numerous morally undesirable personality traits, such as narcissism, Machiavellianism (willingness to manipulate and exploit others for self-benefit), a sense of entitlement, and lower honesty and humility.”

Read 6 tweets

Richard Spoor

@Richard_Spoor

25 Feb

Looking at the books of a large restitution trust. It owes SARS R125 million and can’t pay. Between them, all the entities that own restituted land likely owe SARS, Eskom, water boards and local municipalities several billion rand.
Sustainability is not a big thing in the DRDLR.

Most of these entities were just sent on their way, without any capacity or in the case of smaller entities, even the resources to put in place any appropriate governance. Most trustees or CPA committee members have no skills or experience in governance, so they fail.

It would have been so easy for government to do a deal with an audit firm to provide a basic but independent administration and to compel the trusts and CPA’s to use them. To keep records and minutes, prepare budgets, give advice on contracts and control the banking.
But no.

Read 5 tweets

Richard Spoor

@Richard_Spoor

19 Oct 20

Since 2009, the three interim trustees of the Mjejane Trust, Messrs Simeon Ngomane (attorney) Meshack Silinda (attorney) and Lazarus Zitha (community member) have spent R74 million of the trust’s money without a cent going to the beneficiaries and without any accounting.

The Mjejane Trust is a land restitution trust, set up for the members of the Lugedlane community who were forcibly removed from their land at Tenbosch in 1954. Since the trust was established in 1996 at a cost of about R400 million. The beneficiaries have not seen any benefit.

The trustees have also been running a lucrative business “selling” trust land at Hectorspruit and at Malelane, by allocating stands to land invaders at R20 000 per plot.

Read 13 tweets

Richard Spoor

@Richard_Spoor

27 Sep 20

Spent an interesting day at a land reform project near Lydenburg. The farm was acquired 10 years ago at a cost of R20 million, half of which was loaned from the land bank. About 1800 ha arable land of which about 285 ha is under irrigation.

The project got off to a bad start as the purchase price did not include the farming equipment or livestock. Even the dairy equipment, including the milking sheds, and other buildings were removed.

What’s interesting is that despite the setbacks and some internal instability it’s working. The trust is farming itself, it employs a farm manager, the dairy is running again, they have a dairy herd and are growing grain crops including wheat under centre pivots.

Read 8 tweets

Richard Spoor

@Richard_Spoor

15 Sep 20

One of the reasons for the violence around mining is insecure tenure for people living in the former bantustans. Despite decades of promises there has been no substantive reform. What little has been achieved has been achieved through the courts. dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-0…

The Courts have spelled out the rights of communal land owning communities and processes that should be followed in the alienation of communal land. This has resulted in some key victories for well organised communities, but elsewhere the impact has been small.

Local chiefs and headmen, and in the case of KZN the Ngonyama Trust, still enjoy unconstrained power of over land paying scant regard to the guidance provided by the courts. Absent a strong and organised community they are free to allocate community land to cronies as they will.

Read 6 tweets

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!