Spa was ‘Mickey Mouse’ operation

Fidentia boss J Arthur Brown’s claims that his wife’s day spa business was worth R100-million have been rubbished by one of her former employees.

A former senior Facets employee who had agreed to be named but later got cold feet, says the day spa was not making enough money to cover its monthly expenses and was being propped up by Brown.

‘We all assumed that this was his tax drain that he was pouring his money into,” says the employee. ‘Arthur was funding the whole thing, without a doubt.”

The employee says the money brought in by the gym, spa and conference centre was never enough to cover the R35 000 rent that Susan Brown was paying to Fidentia and the salaries of more than 70 staff members.

”This was such a Mickey Mouse operation, it was ridiculous,” said the employee.

The four-storey retail and fitness centre located at Century City closed its doors in late February after a Facets bank account was reported to have been frozen by the Fidentia curators.

However, Dines Gihwala, one of the Fidentia curators, says that, to the best of his knowledge, no Facets bank accounts have been frozen.

Gihwala did add that, as more than 300 Fidentia-related accounts had been frozen, it was possible that one of these could have been related to Facets.

Notices outside the Facets building, which is owned by Fidentia claim the operation had to close as a result of an ‘unforeseen security risk”.

‘I hear that the Browns own a property in Dubai and that Susan wanted to open a Facets there,” says the employee.

The employee says money was not an object for the Browns. She claims that Arthur bought a house for a close friend of Susan’s and a car for the friend’s son.

The employee says that Susan often purchased personal items through Facets, such as top-of-the-range beds for her mother and her mother-in-law.

According to the employee, when the Fidentia scandal first hit the news, Susan got a call to come and fetch her boys from school because the other children were getting to them.

Susan is said to have left a couple of days after this, to spend some time with her mother, who lives in Port Elizabeth.

Facets employees claim Susan told staff that their jobs were secure and that they would be paid at the end of the month.

The Facet employees are currently working with a labour consultant in a bid to get some form of retrenchment package.

Susan Brown told the Mail & Guardian this week that she had ‘absolutely no comment to make”.