Iqbal Survé has swept together a collection of insolvent, unprofitable media-related assets and plans to list them on the JSE on Friday, following an initial placement priced at R39.62 a share. The placement price gives the new company, called Sagarmatha, a market capitalisation of R50bn, placing it second to Naspers in the media sector and substantially ahead of Caxton.
Iqbal Survé aims to raise R7.5bn from media listing Ann Crotty 3/4/2018
And although its plans to list have been at least temporarily scuppered, the world, Sagarmatha says, is its oyster as the unicorn readies itself to ride on the super-galactic highway and list on the New York and Hong Kong stock exchanges.
Sagarmatha and other fairy tales Mail & Guardian 13/4/2018
As I started writing this article – 16 February – the news broke that Nedbank had followed the example of ABSA and FNB and Sasol and the local branch of the global telecommunications group, BT (formerly British Telecoms) and his auditors BDO, and his lawyers, ENS and Webber Wentzel, in severing their ties with the man who attended the Brett Kebble funeral and the Gupta wedding, for fear of financial loss and reputational harm.
If you want to understand the reasons for this then read on …
Do you remember Sagarmatha Technologies?
Here’s an intriguing thing: If you type www.sagarmathatech.com into Google on your computer you get a drawing of a tow truck loading a clearly nonfunctioning car and this message:
WE’RE DOWN FOR MAINTENANCE
This page is undergoing maintenance and will be back soon.
We all had high hopes for Sagarmatha, but the JSE did not believe Survé’s shtick and there is, as yet, no indication when the promised listing of his Supergalactic Highway, Fourth Industrial Revolution, blockchain-enabled, multi-sided digital platform and Uber-crushing, integrated business ecosystem African Unicorn on the New York Stock Exchange will happen.
And if Sagarmatha can’t even maintain a website, do Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and Bernard Arnault and all the other business titans have anything to worry about?
Here’s another intriguing thing:
On 11 December 2015, the IOL headline read Finland appoints Dr Survé as honorary consul.
The article is no longer on the website and in January 2020 the Finland Abroad website carried the following announcement:
We have a new Honorary Consul in Cape Town. Mr Philip Palmgren follows in the footsteps of his late father and becomes a second generation Honorary Consul to serve Finland.
Could it be that the Finnish government has joined the above-mentioned companies in seeking to distance itself from the ‘other Mandela doctor’?
To more topical matters of grave import:
In May last year the South Gauteng High Court ruled that one of Iqbal Survé’s newspapers, The Star, had defamed Maria Ramos.
Its editor is Sifiso Mahlangu and he is clearly an ambitious young man, not one to rest on his laurels.
Now, as an encore, the newspaper he edits has defamed Acting Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, depicting him as a liar.
Mahlangu will suffer no sanction despite the claim by Yogas Nair, Independent Media’s internal ombud, that ‘accountability is sacrosanct’ at Sekunjalo Independent Media.
What he must avoid however, is offending Brian Molefe because, if he does that, he will find himself, like Wally Mbhele, looking for another job.
Because, you see, his employer holds Brian Molefe in such high esteem that he would like to see him replace André de Ruyter at the helm of Eskom which has been so relentlessly-plundered by the ANC’s deployed cadres.
Survé is quoted saying that Molefe ‘has the credentials, to rescue, not just the power utility, but the country’s economy’ and that it was “…important to do what is right.”
This despite the findings in the second Zondo report – see here and here and here and here.
What all of this shows, however, is that we South Africans, like people everywhere, are not a nation of gullible fools:
- We do not see Brian Molefe as the country’s saviour;
- We do not believe the claim that Nelson Mandela had his medical needs tended to ‘on and off the island’ ;
- We do not believe that he played a singular role as a psychologist to some of the of the world’s best sportsmen and women at the time of their greatest triumphs;
- The Public Investment Corporation does not believe that Sekunjalo Independent Media is a going concern given the fact that he has outsourced its employees and cut its medical aid contributions to its pensioners by 50% while enjoying a standard of living that they can only fantasise about;
- The Public Investment Corporation does not believe that the AYO deal was honest and ethical and legal and is seeking through our courts to recoup this rapidly-dissipating investment;
- The Mpati Commission did not believe that his relationship with Dan Matjila was above board;
- The ANC wants nothing to do with him;
- South Africans are aware that Sekunjalo Independent Media played no role in the Guptaleaks exposé – a pivotal factor in the nation’s history – which is hardly surprising given that Iqbal Survé at one time considered going into business with them and was an invited guest at the infamous Gupta wedding;
- South Africans are aware that Survé acknowledged at a 2006 insolvency inquiry that he had used his personal bank account as a conduit to funnel the proceeds of Brett Kebble’s fraud and theft into the bank accounts of prominent ANC politicians as a means of buying political influence and their protection. Some might feel this meets the definition of money laundering and ask why this was never investigated;
- South Africans note his openly-expressed antipathy towards white people and ask how this can be reconciled with Nelson Mandela’s ideal of nation building through reconciliation? ;
- South Africans note his willingness to play the race card – in May 2014 he accused a distinguished South African editor, Alide Dasnois, of being a racist when no evidence exists to support such a claim; in June 2014 he accused Press Ombudsman Joe Thloloe, journalism lecturer Dr Simphiwe Sesanti of Stellenbosch University and former editor of The Star Peter Sullivan of being racists for awarding Dasnois the Nat Nakasa award for courage and integrity in journalism when no evidence exists to support such a claim; he accused Politicsweb owner James Myburgh, R W Johnson and Alec Hogg of being ‘closet racists with a right wing agenda’ when Myburgh revealed that Survé was making no effort to repay the PIC loan which enabled him to take control of the Independent Media titles – Myburgh was subsequently vindicated in parliament;
- South Africans note his willingness to accuse other companies and institutions of being ‘anti-transformation’ when his own record in this regard is suspect. As the authors of Paper Tiger point out, one of the first things he did after gaining control of Independent Media was to close the Independent’s cadet school – which had long been a vital entry point for aspiring black journalists into the profession – as a cost-saving measure. Furthermore, the number of editor-level staff of colour who have left his employ since 2013 is without precedent in our newspaper history – Moshoeshoe Monare, Philani Mgwaba, Makhudu Sefara, Karima Brown, Vukani Mde, Wally Mbhele, Steve Motale, Ellis Mnyandu, Unathi Kondile, Gasant Abarder, Lynette Johns, Yunus Kemp, Jermaine Craig, Lebogang Seale, Jovial Rantao, Lindiz van Zilla and Fikile-Ntsikelelo Moya;
- The South African Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union (Sactwu) does not hold him in high esteem;
- Parliament does not believe his conspiracy claims;
- The South African public does not believe his claims about his life being threatened by ‘thick white substances’ which might or might not be Brylcreem and is not surprised that a claimed police investigation has found no evidence to substantiate such claims ;
- Some South Africans find his attacks on the judiciary disturbing;
- Survé has yet to provide proof of the accusations that he made two years ago against Pravin Gordhan;
- The JSE is concerned about the failure of companies to which he is linked to follow business protocols – see here and here and here and here and here;
- South Africa’s government employees and current civil service pensioners do not believe he acts in their best interests: He is refusing to pay back the initial loan which enabled him to buy the Independent titles. This unrepaid loan with accrued debt default interest now exceeds a billion rand and the AYO shares which, thanks to Dan Matjila were bought for R43 each, are now selling on the JSE for R4;
- South Africans do not believe his claims of being an ‘ardent philanthropist’ because, in the nation’s hour of greatest need, he did not contribute a cent to the Covid-19 Solidarity Fund, unlike those who are constantly attacked in his newspapers – the Oppenheimers and the Ruperts and Naspers;
- South Africans see parallels between the National Party in the mid-1970s when John Vorster approved the use of secret military slush fund for propaganda purposes to enhance the party’s profile during the Muldergate era – what became known as the ‘Info Scandal – and the recent ‘Project Wave’ evidence before the Zondo Commission. This evidence revealed an attempt to promote the Zuma faction of the ANC which echoed the ‘Stratcom’ approach of the National Party during the apartheid years;
- Two recent books – see here and here – do not depict Iqbal Survé in a flattering light but then neither did an earlier one – see here and here and here and here;
- South Africans – who note Survé’s willingness to portray himself as the hapless victim of ‘racism’ and ‘Corporate terrorism’ and ‘McCarthyism’ and evil ‘anti-transformation tactics’ and ‘double standards’ and ‘dark clouds’ and ‘hidden hands’ and ‘fishing expeditions’ and ‘institutional actions’ and ‘dark forces’ and a ‘blatant abuse of power’ and ‘Stratcom’ and ‘Corporate sabotage’ and, Sactwu and ‘shut down plots’ etc. etc. – note that other media companies such as Media 24 and Arena Holdings and Caxton are not experiencing this alleged persecution;
- South Africans do not believe his claims of running an ethical news business because those claims have been debunked by former staff members (who have resigned in droves)- see here and here and here and here and by aggrieved members of the public – see here and here and here and here and here and here and here;
- Furthermore, his senior reporting staff make front page claims on his behalf which are manifestly without substance and suffer no sanction as a consequence;
- Furthermore, South Africans who have read the first Zondo report about the state capture role played by the discredited former Sunday Times reporters Piet Rampedi and Mzilikazi wa Afrika at SARS, note that they are still employed and conclude that ethical journalism is not of paramount concern at Sekunjalo Independent Media. They assume that Survé has read books which detail the terrible toll that Rampedi and wa Afrika took on the personal lives of the victims of their evil state capture reporting – see here and here and here – and question his apparent indifference to their suffering ;
- South Africans, noting all of the above, were not surprised that the SANEF Media Ethics and Credibility Inquiry was damning in its criticism of Sekunjalo Independent Media and its owner;
- South Africans do not believe his constant SLAPP-litigation threats that he is going to sue his critics for ‘billions’ -see here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here. These threats have never resulted in him testifying in court, under oath and subject to cross examination as his many former employees take notes. The South African legal system does not, in any case, award ‘billions’ to successful defamation litigants as he well knows. To be awarded just one billion rand by our courts at the current rate of recompense for defamation would require him to win an improbable number of court cases and, in the light of a recent judgment, that is not going to happen;
- The media community in South Africa does not believe he acts in its interests because, as the ‘Tembisa Ten’ example illustrates, he has repeatedly brought this sector into disrepute – see here and here and here and here and here and here;
- There is concern that Sekunjalo Independent Media has become a paid propaganda agent for China, a country where media freedom does not exist.
- Most specifically, the South African public does not believe his totally unhinged claim of countless babies being abducted from hospitals in Gauteng and murdered for ‘muti’ without a single frame of corroborating security camera footage being provided – all hospitals have security cameras at the entrance and at the entrance to specific sections such as maternity wards – without a single example of this ‘muti’ being displayed and without a single charge being laid at a Gauteng police station by a bereaved mother. The ‘baby murder for muti’ claim is as plausible and convincing as the latest claim from Sekunjalo Independent Media – that the navy in Simon’s Town has turned its guns on its own citizens;
- We concur with Helen Zille that such claims are typical of Sekunjalo Independent Media’s approach to journalism – ‘fake news on steroids’;
- Given all of this, South Africans understand why Iqbal Survé felt it necessary to follow the lead of the Guptas and remove Sekunjalo Independent Media from SA Press Council jurisdiction;
- They wish Philip Palmgren well in his role as Honorary Consul for Finland in Cape Town;
- South Africans will note that the R50 billion Unicorn snuffed it almost four years ago and conclude that, like Monty Python’s dead parrot, it is unlikely to make an appearance on the New York Stock Exchange anytime soon.
- They have always regarded the Sagarmatha claims as thoroughly suspect – see here and here and here and here and here. They will, accordingly, find the denouement entirely appropriate, an absolute hoot and completely beyond parody. From ‘Intergalactic Unicorn’ to a defective car on a tow truck – what could be more symbolically appropriate than that?
The joke is on him and his most obsequious imbongi who has called for unethical and fake news to be criminalised.
The news that yet another bank has severed its ties with him shows that the world at large increasingly shares Anton Harber’s view of Iqbal Survé – that he is a ‘charlatan and a fantasist’.
Those who recall his role in the Leisurenet crash which saw thousands of South African pensioners impoverished might well think that this could not have happened to a nicer person.
[Image: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/mirror-broken-horizon-desert-6507059/]
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR
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