David Brink of Absa has taken exception to Martin Welz’s description of him as ”Sanlam’s former money man brought in to clean up the mess left behind by Absa’s founding chief executive, Piet Badenhorst.” (M&G, January 26 to February 1 1996)
”The facts are,” Brink said, ”before joining the board of Absa, I worked as a mining engineer and industrialist for Anglo American (eight years) and Murray and Roberts (22 years). Danie Cronje was promoted to succeed Piet Badenhorst as chief executive of Absa.”
Welz replies: ”We assumed that, as chief executive and chairman of M&R (a Sanlam subsidiary) for all those years, you were Sanlam’s man, dealing with Sanlam’s money — and not doing any engineering. We have noted, for instance, that you were personally involved in some of M&R’s decidedly financial offshore dealings that were, in the secret old days, not reflected in M&R’s balance sheet.
”And, surely, now as Absa chairman (a Sanlam-dominated banking group), you are looking after Sanlam’s money, and not doing any engineering? If we were wrong, we apologise”.