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EWN reports that the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) is hopeful that it can still recover the almost R1.8 billion in public money that it lost on two failed investments in Bounty Brands.
Earlier this year, investigative outfit Scorpio exposed how in late 2018, just months after the second investment was made, the consumer goods group found itself in a debt crisis. That prompted a drastic restructure that saved it from financial ruin, but left the UIF’s shares worthless. Now Scorpio has tracked some R530 million of the UIF’s money back to its UK holding company, namely Bounty Brands Holdings, and unearthed how it was apparently paid out to shareholders as dividends. UIF spokesperson Makhosonke Buthelezi emphasised that the fund had granted the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) a mandate to make investments on its behalf and that the PIC ran its own investment processes that the UIF had been assured included “thorough due diligence of all envisaged transactions”. Buthelezi indicated that the PIC regularly reported back to the fund on the performance of the investments and, as a result, the fund had recently been made aware of the investments in Bounty Brands. He said the fund “deplores the alleged malfeasance in Bounty Brands”. But he also said the UIF’s understanding was that the PIC had instituted an investigation which it believed would result in recovering the funds.
- Read the original of the report in the above regard by Bernadette Wicks at EWN
- Read too, How a foreign company appropriated R500m of your UIF money, at EWN
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page