Sir Mick Davis follows Sir Donald Gordon – with a bargain-priced knighthood

By Alec Hogg

Dave King, founder, promoter and invisible seller of his shares in a 50c to R80 back to zero company called Specialised Outsourcing, is now firmly ensconced as chairman of Glasgow Rangers FC, one of Europe’s great football clubs. King’s decade-long fight with SARS over the R1.2bn profit made from his Specialised Outsourcing shares has been well documented.

Not quite as well known but equally extraordinary in terms of the money that was made, is the way non executive directors of King’s company harvested massive profits by advancing the cashing-in date of their Specialised Outsourcing share options. Doing so ensured they could sell into the bubble before the inevitable crash came, delivering spectacular rewards. Among the beneficiaries was the man Britons now know as Sir Mick Davis, knighted earlier this month “for services to holocaust commemoration.”

As it happens, the Specialised Outsourcing share option bounty was only the start of Davis’s good fortune. He added plenty more through his roles at BHP Billiton and then his own creation XStrata. Interestingly, Davis’s knighthood came shortly after a R28m donation to David Cameron’s Conservative Party. It comes ten years after another now London-based South African, Donald Gordon, also became a Sir, in his instance for “services to the arts and business.” Gordon’s followed a R250m gift to the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden.

From a purely financial perspective, it’s clear which of the two Sirs got the better deal.

From Biznews community member David Mordant

I think Gordon’s gift was to the Welsh Opera and not the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. I don’t think you can claim buying knighthoods by business men/ladies is a South African invention.

And remember Davis was passed over as GM of Eskom for religious reasons and promptly left. Had he stayed maybe RSA would have had a reliable electricity supply today. Somehow RSA always trips itself up with the curse of racism.

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