Fidentia mastermind Arthur Brown and group accountant Graham Maddock are behind bars this week for Fidentia’s failure to account for more than R200-million belonging to the Transport Sector Training Education Authority (Teta).
The Scorpions say they have not yet tackled the almost R700-million missing from the Living Hands Trust and expect to make ‘quite a few†more arrests in relation to the unfolding Fidentia scandal.
Brown and Maddock were denied bail when they appeared in the Cape Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday. They have been charged with theft and fraud as well as contravening several Acts, including the Companies Act and the Reserve Bank Act.
A complex web of loans and options between companies controlled by Brown has made it difficult for investigators to track the money that clients such as Teta invested into Fidentia Holdings subsidiary Fidentia Asset Management (FAM), says a report on the company by the Financial Services Board (FSB).
The FSB report outlines the disappearance of Teta’s R200-million as the most clear-cut case of FAM’s mismanagement.
Teta’s missing millions
According to the FSB report, Brown and his lawyers initially denied that FAM had received money from Teta. While looking for Teta’s missing R245,7-million, however, the FSB discovered that FAM had recorded Teta’s investment under a false name and deposited it into its auditors’ bank account.
‘Teta’s mandate and relationship was deliberately withheld from us,†the FSB report states. It adds that FAM failed to comply with the instructions of its clients, which was to hold the money in money market instruments with one of the four major banks.
In early 2004, FAM put Teta’s investment into auditing group Maddock Incorporated’s bank account, allegedly because FAM lacked its own account at the time. Graham Maddock, who founded Maddock Inc in 2002, told the FSB that he no longer worked there when he became a Fidentia director. The FSB reports that Maddock Inc were the auditors for FAM and Fidentia Holdings from October 2003 to April 2006 but Greenwoods also served as their auditors from April 2004 to 2006.
Maddock Inc manager Steven Mostert said his company lost the auditing contract to another auditing firm, Greenwoods, when Maddock went to Fidentia. He declined to comment further.
Maddock assumed an executive position in FAM in April 2004, according to the FSB, but signed off as the auditor for FAM’s 2004 year-end financial statements. Although the FSB says this is a breach of his independence in line with the Public Accountants and Auditors Act, a Scorpion source says his current arrest is not related to this breach.
In October 2006, Greenwoods informed the Registrar of Financial Services Providers that it could not finalise FAM’s 2005 year-end audit report because of insufficient information. It also identified discrepancies in the 2004 audit regarding client assets and liabilities.
Maddock Inc are also listed as the auditors for several companies related to Fidentia Holdings, including Brown Brothers, South African Women’s Investment Holdings and one of the trusts that had R34-million in FAM.
After analysing bank statements for Maddock Inc, the FSB concluded that Teta’s money was used to ‘defray various operational expenses and to purchase assets for Brown Brothers and the Fidentia Groupâ€. It added: ‘Funds also appear to have been utilised for the personal expenses or investments of Brown.â€
Brown did provide monthly statements to Teta about the use of its funds, but could not provide proof to the FSB to support these statements. The FSB report concludes that FAM probably could not account for or repay the money invested by Teta.
How Fidentia made client funds disappear
The FSB report details a complicated set of transactions that were used to circumvent FAM’s licence conditions and cover up the use of clients’ money to purchase property and private equity.
The FSB report highlights the fact that FAM was investing client money in a Fidentia Holdings subsidiary Bramber Alternative (Pty) Ltd. This money was then loaned from Bramber to Fidentia Holdings in order to purchase property and fund private equity investments.
Fidentia Holdings would then issue an option to Bramber for the transfer of the shares in the future, valued at the same price as the loaned money; however these assets were never held in the client’s names, as required by law.
‘It will be difficult, if not impossible, for a liquidator, for instance, to be able to identify clients’ assets. What has happened in essence is that clients’ funds have been appropriated by the Fidentia Group,†says the FSB report.
The FSB report also says the fact that all options granted to Bramber were signed and dated on February 15 2006 and were signed by the same parties is an indication that these agreements are part of the documents that were allegedly drawn up and back-dated for the benefit of the FSB inspection.
The FSB says, because the same shareholders control Bramber and FAM, there was a serious conflict of interest: ‘Despite Brown maintaining that Bramber and FAM are ring- fenced from one another, even he at times during questioning referred to Bramber as ‘me’. All our questioning indicated that all decisions relating to Bramber are approved and initiated by Brown.â€
Fidentia curator Dines Gihwala said it was difficult to know what belonged to who in the Fidentia scandal, describing it as a ‘complete messâ€, which he said could take years to unravel.