Belvedere scandal: The Anchor Capital connection

Peter ArmitageBy Alec Hogg

Peter Armitage, top rated investment analyst, founder and CEO of the JSE’s go-go stock Anchor Capital, has distanced himself from the growing Cobus Kellermann/Clarus Asset Managers scandal.

Armitage’s name along with his qualification (CA) and experience (20 years) appeared among half dozen “key people” on the Clarus Capital website. So on Saturday morning, when the original draft of my first article was completed, a copy was also sent to Armitage for comment. This was followed up by a phone call.

By Sunday evening, Armitage’s name had been removed from the Clarus website. Indeed, on Monday morning the entire website was taken down.

My association with Peter Armitage goes back many years. Before moving into money management, he worked in investor relations for my dear (late) friend David Carte. His sister, Lynn Trevella, was our head of technology in the very early years of Moneyweb.

So when I asked about his relationship with the alleged Ponzi kingpin Cobus Kellermann and why he would agree to have his name associated so closely with the company, Armitage was frank: “I always found Cobus delightful. They asked if they could use my name in this way for marketing purposes. Anchor invests a lot of money (R300m) for Cobus’s company so I saw nothing wrong in this.”

At my request, Armitage followed up on our conversation by clarifying with an emailed note which reads: “I believe Cobus owns Clarus Asset Management, which outsources the management of its funds to external asset managers, which I believe includes Efficient Group, Coronation, Contego, Atlantic and ourselves among others.

“Anchor Capital manages the equity and property funds (with a combined net asset value of around R300 million) which have performed superbly over the last year. Clarus became a client of ours roughly a year ago. These funds are all run on the local Metropolitan platform, which is responsible for the custody and net asset value, unitisation etc.”

He added: “Other than being an externally outsourced asset manager and Cobus (through his funds) being a client of Anchor Capital, neither Anchor Capital nor myself are or ever have been in business with Mr Kellermann.”

Anchor Capital was listed on the JSE in September 2014 after a private placing of shares at 200c. It now trades at almost six times that level.
Anchor Capital was listed on the JSE in September 2014 after a private placing of shares at 200c. It now trades at almost six times that level.

Armitage-founded Anchor Capital has been one of the fastest rising shares on the JSE, trading at almost six times the price at which it was offered six months ago ahead of its listing. When it made its debut last September the two year old company was valued at what many believed was a rather rich R180m.

Many have been bemused at the continued surge in the value of the small asset management business’s which at its current share price is worth a staggering R1.6bn. Especially after Armitage himself said the valuation was stretched when it was a third of the current level.

Interestingly, Armitage pointed out that Anchor Group also announced in the results this week that “we have acquired Contego Holdings, which has its own funds and also manages the Clarus Fund of Fund unit trusts on the same outsourced basis (these invest in the underlying unit trusts, some of which we manage, as explained above).

“I can’t think of anything else. I have no knowledge of Cobus’s offshore operations.”

* Click here to read the “back story” and access links to all the Biznews.com coverage of the Belvedere saga.

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