Fidentia Asset Management (FAM) may have transferred part of the missing R689-million in clients’ funds to overseas bank accounts, Business Report wrote on Tuesday.
This is according to a report by the Financial Services Board (FSB).
The Cape High Court placed Fidentia under curatorship last Thursday after the FSB exposed the misappropriation of funds at the company, which managed at least R1,6-billion on behalf of clients.
Of these funds, R1,47-billion came from the Living Hands Umbrella Trust, which pays out money invested with Fidentia by the Mineworkers’ Provident Fund to orphans and widows of people killed in mining accidents.
Another R245-million came from Teta, the education and training authority for the transport sector.
The application follows a probe of Fidentia by a team mandated by the FSB, and it paints a bleak picture of the way the company carried out business. It included references to ”misrepresentation to clients”, ”misappropriation of client funds”, ”misrepresenting investments”, ”inadequate corporate governance” and ”material conflicts of interest”.
”We came across a number of transactions wherein transfers were made to offshore bank accounts from what would appear to be client funds,” Dawood Seedat and Brandom Topham, the inspectors of financial institutions at the industry regulator, said in their report. – Sapa