I now know, categorically, that Atul Gupta is completely off the rails. Nowadays he only lies when he opens his mouth. And did so again this week when stating the widely publicised GuptaLeaks emails are a fiction, an example of enemies creating “fake news” as part of a conspiracy against his crony capitalist family.
The leaked emails are 100% authentic, because among them is one I sent him on 8th August 2014. My email was forwarded to the addresses on the server at Sahara Computers from whence the now famously leaked emails emerged. The email surfaced after a source with a copy of GuptaLeaks ran a search on Biznews and my name.
It reminded me of the time we met at the Gupta Media HQ that went on for three hours, including a guided tour by the chairman of his impressive facilities. Reflecting on that meeting provided a pretty good idea why the Gupta boys are now bailing out with such rapidity.
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Let me explain. When I left Moneyweb in October 2012, part of the informal agreement was that controlling shareholder Caxton acquire my MNY shares six months hence. When that time arrived, corporate amnesia struck, leaving me with the unenviable task of trying to sell 18% of a thinly traded stock into the open market.
When that didn’t work, I started working through a list of every possible buyer. Gupta Media was among them, as they have a business relationship with Caxton which prints the family’s daily newspaper The New Age.
Most of my requests were politely declined. Atul Gupta, however, arranged that memorable March 2014 meeting.
There was too much detail to repeat here. But a couple of impressions are relevant. One, Atul maintained befriending powerful politicians is simply a good business practice. And two, the Gupta boys deferred on all matters to the family matriarch.
Atul was angry at growing criticism of the family because it was hurting “Mammie”. He added the decision to relocate from Saharanpur to SA was fulfilling his late father’s wish which “Mammie” was determined to enforce. And so on.
So my instinct tells me “Mammie” has finally changed her mind about South Africa. And that she has issued the instruction that her sons get the hell out of the country. Presumably, it is what her late husband would now wish. Hence the speed with which deals are being struck.
In their haste, the Gupta boys are no longer bothering to cover their tracks. It started with Zuma’s cavalcade going directly from the ANC lekgotla to the Saxonwold Shebeen. And now with the deals. You could drive a double decker bus through the “sale” of heavily haemorrhaging Gupta Media to political blowhard Jimmy Manyi at a ridiculously inflated price. That is a car crash in slow motion.
Ditto the “sale” of the asset squeezed from Glencore with the aid of a cabinet minister and Gupta associates then running Eskom. The Optimum coal mine is now being “sold” at a hefty profit to the Dubai-based Al Zarooni family whose patriarch, Ismail, spent 53 years in the oil and gas sector and is now invested primarily in real estate and other assets in the Middle East.
It is irrational to believe at this advanced stage of his life Al Zarooni would countenance a near R3bn plunge into highly volatile South African coal mining. More likely the “deal” is simply a parking place to placate “Mammie”.
Privately managed family businesses are very different to those studied by the investment community and the media. Decisions are often driven by desires that would never hit a boardroom agenda.
In this case, my money is on the matriarch calling quits on SA. So stand by for more crazy announcements of Gupta Inc “sales”. Followed by the long anticipated departure of a family whose greed has wrought such damage on the young democracy.
