Was Finance Week publisher David Gleason a hired gun? Mungo Soggot reports
THE feud between Times Media Limited and former employee David Gleason exploded into the public domain this week, as TML’s Business Day newspaper published long- rumoured allegations about Gleason’s ethical behaviour.
The newspaper on Wednesday published a carefully worded but wounding article alleging that Gleason had invited Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) to encourage him to stop writing a series of critical articles.
The articles, which Gleason wrote during his stint at TML’s Financial Mail, related to the RMB and to KwaZulu-Natal water utility Umgeni Water, and provoked a full- scale investigation by Water Affairs Minister Kader Asmal.
Gleason allegedly told top RMB executives he would stop writing if the bank favoured mining house Randgold in a mooted deal concerning Gold Fields of South Africa. He wrote a number of articles about Randgold for the Financial Mail, and often critical articles of Gold Fields.
Gleason has personal friends and business associates on the Randgold board, and refuses to confirm or deny that certain Randgold directors backed his sensational takeover of Finance Week last year.
Gleason and Financial Mail editor Nigel Bruce quit TML under a cloud after Gleason bought Finance Week. Up to that point, they had studiously denied such plans.
A statement by RMB executive Wendy Lucas- Bull about a meeting with Gleason in Cape Town – in the Mail & Guardian’s possession – quotes Gleason as having said: “As far as I am concerned, RMB pushing through the deal [with Randgold] will be enough of a favour to me personally to stop writing.”
Lucas-Bull, who heads Business Against Crime, says Gleason opened the meeting with the statement: “If it comes to it I will deny that this discussion ever took place.”
A statement by RMB managing director Paul Harris says, “He [Gleason] said he had damaging information about RMB that he could continue to write for a long time, but that he would stop doing so if I ensured the Randgold deal went through. He said he did not stand to gain personally from the deal but that he wanted the transaction to take place.”
Business Day’s decision to publish follows months of sniping between TML and Finance Week, and months of rumours about Gleason and RMB. Nigel Bruce claims the documents only came into TML’s possession last week when RMB handed them to his successor at the Financial Mail, Peter Bruce.
In this week’s Finance Week, Bruce says RMB merely plotted to discredit Gleason for his Umgeni Water articles.
Bruce threatened Business Day with an interdict on Monday night, but had not taken any legal action at the time of going to press. A junior Business Day journalist read the article to Bruce before it was published.
Finance Week retaliated this week with a lengthy article entitled “RMB’s vendetta”. The article focuses mainly on the background to Gleason’s articles about RMB and skirts the ethics issue. It says: “RMB has not been able to establish a motive for Gleason’s alleged blackmail. There is no suggestion that he received any money.”
It adds: “The bank … chose neither to sue for the defamation it alleges nor to bring a charge for `blackmail’. Gleason denies he made the threats attributed to him separately by Harris and Lucas-Bull, and has refused invitations to justify his alleged remarks in the face of a threat of legal proceedings … This is a sordid matter which neither Gleason nor Bruce would wish to bring into the public domain.”
Correspondence on the matter last year between RMB, Roy Paulson, then Times Media managing director, and Bruce includes a letter from RMB’s Harris to Bruce which states: “To allege before getting an explanation from Gleason that Wendy Lucas- Bull and I made up the story in order to intimidate Gleason is insulting to us. If we were this dishonest we would surely have considered accepting his proposal. There is absolutely no doubt in our minds what proposal Gleason put to us and he should confirm it with you.”
Harris says in another note to Bruce that Gleason’s allegation that Lucas-Bull and Harris “fabricated the story and have lied to our lawyers … is as grave as the original blackmail issue”.
Sharon Wapnik of Johannesburg law firm Moss Morris – who also handles legal work for former Finance Week owner Oliver Hill – was unavailable for comment. Gleason flew to Cape Town on Wednesday and was also unavailable for comment.