Fidentia executive chairperson Arthur Brown and his cronies are responsible for reducing R2-billion in other people’s savings to a meagre R8,5-million.
This claim emerged on the Moneyweb Power Hour on Monday night when one of the curators of Fidentia, forensic accountant George Papadakis, said that about R8,5-million is left in the company’s ”larder”.
In an update on the financial situation of Fidentia, which was placed under curatorship earlier this month after a Financial Services Board investigation into the company, Papadakis confirmed that Fidentia is now probably a ”R2-billion question”.
Business Day reported on Wednesday that Brown, who paid himself R400 000 a month as Fidentia chairperson, may hold ”private interviews” with certain journalists on Wednesday via a Cape-based media consultancy.
About R2-billion in cash poured into Cape Town-based Fidentia, but only peanuts worth of assets can now be traced, Moneyweb reported.
Various investigators have stated that substantial sums were transferred offshore, but on the domestic front, it’s believed by some that a ”black hole” may be unearthed in and around an entity known as Ovation.
The link is the late Angus Cruickshank, who apparently committed suicide in 2006.
Instant lawn salesman
Meanwhile, Herald Online reported this week that Brown went from a humble plot in Greenbushes, Port Elizabeth, to a lifestyle complete with country estates, flashy cars and failed spas.
Brown, who apparently used to be an instant lawn salesman, rocketed from a nonentity to fabulous riches, including millions splashed by his group of companies on corporate spending sprees.
It has also been reported that Eastern Cape cricket was in jeopardy after the collapse of Fidentia, its major sponsor. At risk is a R4,9-million deal Fidentia signed with the Warriors last year. Fidentia also sponsored the Boland rugby team, renamed the Fidentia Boland Cavaliers, to the tune of R15-million.
According to the companies’s register, Brown was a director of several other virtually unknown enterprises in the Eastern Cape, including construction, transport and computer companies registered in Mthatha.
The roles played by Brown’s business associates are also under investigation in a scandal that extends from impoverished orphans in the Lesotho highlands to one of the country’s top businesswomen, Dr Danisa Baloyi, a Living Hands trustee.
Brown, who drove a Ferrari or a luxury 4×4, espoused a philosophy of ”responsible capitalism”.
However, financial investigators say he built a pyramid of companies by allegedly pilfering trust funds, including that of the Living Hands fund for widows and orphans of mineworkers.
According to associates, Brown was born in Namibia and was about six when his father died.
He and his two brothers grew up in South Africa with his mother and stepfather, who live in the Southern Cape in the Glentana area. Brown’s qualifications as financial whizzkid are unknown, but he told colleagues that he had studied at the University of Port Elizabeth and had once worked for a merchant bank.
His secretary this week also confirmed that he had lived in Port Elizabeth and had studied at the University of Port Elizabeth.
However, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (the result of a merger of the Port Elizabeth Technikon, the University of Port Elizabeth and the Port Elizabeth campus of Vista University) spokesperson Roslyn Baatjies said there were no records of him studying at the university.
He apparently moved to Cape Town about five years ago. – Sapa