George Manyere tells Magnus Heystek: THIS is how Ecsponent will repay investors

Magnus Heystek is a household figure among South Africans with an interest in personal finance and investing. He has his name on a a string of personal finance books and has probed various investment scams over the years, ringing the alarm for the broader community. When he first encountered the preference shares on offer from Ecsponent, a company listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, something didn't smell right. The returns were too good to be true, and it was not clear what Ecsponent was doing to ensure a steady flow of money back to investors. So, Heystek discouraged the clients of Brenthurst Wealth Management, his firm, from taking up the offer. Recently, it emerged that Ecsponent had got into difficulty, reneging on redeeming R188m of preference shares. In this podcast with BizNews founder and editor-in-chief Alec Hogg and Heystek, Ecsponent's boss George Manyere pours cold water on concerns that investors will lose their money. Manyere outlines his plans to fix the problems at Ecsponent. – Jackie Cameron

An interesting story among the small caps, is a company called Ecsponent. We have the major shareholder in the studio, George Manyere. One of the bigger critics of Ecsponent over recent times has been Magnus Heystek who joins us now on the line. Magnus, we spoke about Ecsponent about a month ago. You were concerned about the way that they'd gone about their business – raising money by selling preference shares at high interest rates. As a consequence of that, you were warning people – 4 to 5 years ago – not to support them and now, those preference shares are no longer being serviced. Maybe just recap quickly and we can put your questions to George, who is sitting next to me.

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