HQ: The Guptas’ London-based PR firm Bell Pottinger has polished the image of people like Chile’s Pinochet. (Toby Melville/Reuters)
In April this year the now seemingly terminal Bell Pottinger announced it had “agreed to terminate” its relationship with Oakbay, the corporate vehicle for the Gupta family. It had done no work for the family since then, Bell Pottinger has insisted several times since.
On August 24, more than four months later, Wikipedia user Janadavis thought it incumbent upon herself to update the online encyclopaedia’s entry on the Gupta family.
The Guptas had decided to sell off its media and coal assets as “part of a commitment to preserve jobs”, Janadavis noted in the update.
That user has made just three other contributions to Wikipedia. On June 12 the account was used to note that Pravin Gordhan had been removed as finance minister “in the light of Gordhan allegedly holding secret meetings to undermine the government during a trade trip to London”. On July 16 the account updated the page for Julius Malema to explain that he is famous for inciting violence and also updated Trevor Manuel’s entry to note his work for the Rothschild family — the family that apparently sank the Titanic.
Although Janadavis appeared on the scene after Bell Pottinger withdrew from service, other Gupta family online supporters — and fierce critics of the family’s perceived enemies — seemed to run out of steam. Twitter account @Tshepo_Magadi, once closely associated with a pro-Gupta network of dubious accounts, fell silent on July 19. Yet closely associated Twitter account @abrahamcpt19 continued its work of promoting a narrative of white monopoly capital throughout.
Insiders have suggested that Bell Pottinger, despite its denials, did have a hand in the often dirty and sometimes unlawful propaganda campaign involving the Gupta family waged online in recent years. The digital division of the United Kingdom-based firm often outsourced less salubrious activities to keep itself at two or sometimes three removes from the action.
Yet previous investigations into the nature of the Gupta communication campaign have consistently suggested two categories of activity very different from one another. On the one side there were slick, professional efforts that gave rise to the likes of the still active hagiographic website AtulGupta.co.za. On the other side were messy and sometimes counterproductive websites such as the since departed Voetsekblog and TruthbyConnorMead.
If one organisation was responsible for both categories, then it was a schizophrenic one.
Bell Pottinger is apparently capable of the kind of deceit that would see it declare a split from the Gupta family while secretly continuing to work for it. Both its now-departed top leaders, Tim Bell and James Henderson, have been caught in outright lies about their Gupta work.
The Gupta family members have proven themselves willing to lie, plagiarise and dissemble, and that is not counting lurid allegations of bribery and corruption.
Even so, by December, if not before, it should be clear enough whether Twitter bot networks and noisy, defamatory websites were operated by Bell Pottinger — because the company will no longer be around to do work, declared or not.
“I think it probably is getting near the end, yeah, I don’t know, you can try and rescue it but it won’t be very successful,” Bell told the BBC this week about the company that once paid him £1-million a year.
People who have seen a proposal by corporate advisers seeking a new owner for Bell Pottinger this week said its books showed debts in the range of £5-million, or about 15%, of the total global revenues it claimed for 2016. And even in 2016 the company’s revenues were falling fast, its self-reported numbers showed, well before some of its most lucrative clients ran for the hills because of the Gupta scandal. Unless it finds new financing, predictions have it, Bell Pottinger will be forced into bankruptcy by December.
Beyond its reputation problems, finding a new owner or funder will be considerably complicated by its current shareholding structure. Former chief executive Henderson owns 37% of the company alongside his fiancée Heather Kerzner, who was most recently married to Sol Kerzner, the hotel magnate who made much of his wealth in the homelands during apartheid. Kerzner’s involvement is said to have scared off even bargain-hunting buyers that would simply strip the company for its assets.
Meanwhile the company that once bragged about its ability to “drown out negative content” remained quiet and looked unlikely to “come through unscathed”.