Right of Reply: Former Didata executives say Goodall's admission was dictated by NTT

After our podcast with David Shapiro on Jason Goodall's settlement with NTT, four former Dimension Data executives have responded: Jeremy Ord, Steven Nathan, Saki Missaikos and Grant Bodley. They say Goodall admitted wrongdoing in the R1.4bn Campus transaction only as part of his UK settlement, that NTT set the wording, and that the admission contradicts what he said under oath. In their account, NTT funded 95% of the purchase and controlled the property throughout. NTT has now taken the property back, but the executives' R70m has not been repaid. They also dispute several points made on the show. They note that the matter is before the Supreme Court of Appeal, where judgment is reserved..By DiData Campus Six.(00:01) Alec Hogg: Well, for two years, Dimension Data's Campus Six, as we call them, said they'd done nothing wrong. Now there are five. The statement in fact refers to four executives. Despite NTT maintaining that Doc Watson was a party to the conspiracy to mislead them, it now appears (based on the Goodall statement) that they have abandoned that position. This demonstrates that naming these individuals as a criminal gang is wrong and unfair as each of them occupied very different positions. Only some were directors, others were employees or independent consultants.In your podcast, you said that Doc Watson has lived in Australia for many, many years. This is not correct. Mr Watson lives in South Africa and is on very good terms with all of the Executives. (00:01) Alec Hogg: Jason Goodall, who was once chief executive of the group, and then of NTT, the Japanese multinational that bought Didata some years ago, has signed a statement admitting that he was secretly on both sides of the R1.4 billion sale of The Campus. This is the middle of all the controversy. The Executives have never denied that they participated indirectly in the Campus Transaction. 95% of the Campus purchase price was provided by NTT. The Executives provided funding in the form of loans for only R70 million of the full price.NTT's 95% gave them legal and practical control over the Campus. The terms of the loan were such that all profits from the Campus had to be paid to NTT. The loan prohibited the sale of the Campus without NTT's permission. It also prohibited the refinancing of the loan without NTT's permission. The loan had a term of 5 years after which it needed to be repaid in full. So there was no way to repay the loan without NTT agreeing to a sale of the property or for someone else to step in as lender. The loan was secured by a mortgage bond over the property.NTT has in fact used the vendor loan to take back the property. To date, however, nothing has been paid back to the Executives. NTT has its asset back; the Executives have not got their R70 million back.(03:56) David Shapiro: [It was always] going to happen. When you've got six people as part of a deal, someone's going to crack, someone's going to feel guilt, someone's not going to feel comfortable...Goodall faced years of litigation when he was planning his retirement and time with his family. He has ended up paying a fraction of what NTT was claiming from him and he has settled all claims in all jurisdictions. NTT was litigating against Jason Goodall in the UK and those proceedings were due to start on Monday; the day the settlement agreement and statement were signed. It is clear from the statement and the explanation for the statement that Goodall has given that he was put under immense pressure by NTT and that NTT dictated the terms of the settlement. It is also clear that the statement goes well beyond what was required to settle with Goodall. The clear purpose was to use Goodall to improve their case against the others.It is important to remember that not a single person has ever appeared in a witness box or been cross-examined in this matter. The Denise Fischer trial was an application which is proceedings based on affidavits only. Goodall's litigation in the UK was a confidential arbitration that the Executives were not party to and that the public will never have any insight into.What we have on oath from Goodall contradicts what the NTT-dictated statement says. Goodall's whatsapp explanation is set out below.Hi Guys, I just want you to know that after a brutal weekend and a really tough time over the last 6 months preparing for the arbitration, I settled my U.K. case with NTT earlier today. I have also settled the action proceedings in SA in the process. A statement will be issued which explains the cost to me of settling which is in excess of R200m, on top of my own legal costs which are around R150m, so R350m in total!! Makes me feel sick. This is a financial disaster for me, and I’m devastated but it’s still multiples less than what the potential cost could easily have been. I would have been totally wiped out. I can’t say anything more about the settlement or the statement that NTT will publish. There are confidentiality clauses in place in the settlement that I cannot breach. Farrers will shortly be in touch with Werksmans as well to let them know. I really can’t say any more than that. I sorry but hope you understand my position as per the non disclosures in place. Im shattered. I know how hard all of this has been on all of you guys too and hope you are all doing ok? All the best. Cheers Jason (06:40) Alec Hogg: It was, Dave. It's R1.4 billion in total. And so if you divide it by six, it's not really much more than the R200 million that he's paying back, if they got it all, because they wouldn't have got it all. And there were BEE companies involved, and it was really complicated. When I interviewed Rob Rose on the judgment, on Denise Fisher's judgment two years ago...This is entirely wrong. The claim against Goodall arises from what was paid to him when he exited his involvement with NTT. No money changed hands in the Campus transaction save for the R70m participation by the Executives in the Fund which has still not been repaid. NTT has taken back the Campus. NTT's loan and the repayment of the loan was no more than a book entry. There was no flow of funds. That loan represented 95% of the purchase price.The Executives have received nothing and there was never a way for them to receive anything. The purpose of the structure was to improve the BEE rating of the business while retaining control of the Campus so that it could be sold as an integral part of the business.(10:44) Alec Hogg: Well, one of the points with Jason Goodall is that he was being sued by NTT for his pension, which they'd paid out in the UK. And that pension, the retirement package, was $17.6 million. So, to your point, dollars...Goodall was not being sued for his pension. The termination payment of $17.5 million was mostly long term incentive plan entitlements. (12:54) David Shapiro: Yes. Yeah, they were interested parties. In other words, they had a financial interest in it, but it was never disclosed. So I think, like so many deals, you have to kind of wade your way through various structures to find out who the beneficiaries are. And I think this is what came out, after, I think, the Japanese, NTT, must have been suspicious of something. And they were on both sides. Remember, they were sellers and buyers. They were sellers of the building, and then they were buying for themselves as well. So how do you ever maintain that?And there's one thing that you might find. If we go back to a lot of the frauds that take place, white-collar fraud or any fraud, there's always one leader. There's always somebody there at the top of the board saying, we're going to do this, and everybody gets carried away with that. I think there's always some very dominant force. And I think this is Jeremy. He's a very strong character who must have led the others, even, like, with the sale of the shares. I know they were all very, very good friends, but you'll find that probably there's one strong person that decides upon it, puts it on the table, and then you're part of that group. You don't want to say, no, I don't want to go in, or whatever it is. When you go into white-collar crime, it's a very interesting area to delve into.The Executives' case is that NTT intended to sell the Campus to them as part of the MBO and there is ample evidence to show that this is true. They say that NTT knew that they would be participating indirectly in the Campus. (01:21) David Shapiro: No, and there's no necessity to get involved in this kind of transaction. But Alec, let's go back a bit. Go back to the Didata listing. Remember in 1987, when they were the darlings, as you mentioned, of the market. It was at a time when companies were introducing computers into their enterprises, and they needed switches and they needed networking, all of that. And Didata was one of the leading companies there. They weren't as sophisticated as we are now. There wasn't any kind of internet and so on, but you were still introducing... it was a big, big business. And their shares, everybody held their shares. The 1987 boom was underpinned by computer companies. Datatec was there. There were many, many businesses around there.And don't you remember the controversy that arose when, right at the top of the market, they sold their shares? This very same team got rid of their shares at the absolute peak, after which the share price, I think, plunged to maybe one-tenth of its value. And they justified it. Nothing was ever done, other than reputations were questionable. And I just put that in because people who've been around in the market that long will always remember that particular issue. They eventually sold it to NTT, and so they weren't really involved for many, many years, until this.The bottom line on the share sales - shares were sold by employees (including only Jeremy and Doc Watson in a limited amount) in 2000 to fund the purchase of rolling employee scheme options. As you will see from the article above, they all took a hiding because the market crashed. This was not a case of directors selling shares based on inside information and leaving shareholders to pick up the pieces. Saki Missaikos and Grant Bodley did not sell any shares. Steven Nathan never held any shares and was never employed by DD or NTT.There was nothing irregular about these sales..STATEMENT ON BEHALF OF JEREMY ORD, STEVEN NATHAN, SAKI MISSAIKOS AND GRANT BODLEY7 October 2026Former Dimension Data executives reject Goodall's settlement statementWe have noted with shock and dismay the statement which appears to have been made by Jason Goodall dated 5 October 2026, in which he has seen fit to speak on our behalf in admitting wrongdoing in respect of both his and our conduct in relation to the Campus Transaction. Not only was Mr Goodall not authorised to make any statement on our behalf, but his admission of wrongdoing is also entirely inconsistent with what Mr Goodall has deposed to under oath.We note that Mr Goodall's statement was signed as a term of a negotiated settlement that resolves substantial personal claims NTT had brought against him in separate proceedings in the UK. The arbitration proceedings launched by NTT against Mr Goodall were set down for hearing on 5 October 2026. There is no doubt that the wording of Mr Goodall's statement is the product of what was negotiated and agreed between NTT and Mr Goodall as a term of the settlement agreement. The settlement agreement has not been published. Only carefully selected terms of the settlement have been revealed in Mr Goodall's statement.It is most unusual, but not difficult to understand, why Mr Goodall not only admitted that he was guilty of wrongdoing but also agreed with NTT to use the platform of his own settlement statement (in proceedings in which we were not involved) to point the accusatory finger at us as well. Mr Goodall has regrettably permitted NTT to use him as a weapon in their dubious ongoing publicity campaign against us.Mr Goodall advised us, via WhatsApp on 5 October, before this statement was released that he was “devastated” and “shattered” and that in the context of "a brutal weekend and a really tough time over the last 6 months preparing for the arbitration", he had settled his case with NTT. There is no doubt that he felt pressure to conclude the settlement agreement and to agree to the statement that he advised that NTT would publish because if he had been unsuccessful, he would have, in his words, been "totally wiped out”.It is sad for us to respond to Mr Goodall's statement by pointing out that what he has now stated directly contradicts many statements he has made under oath and that he has done so pursuant to the terms of the settlement he has reached with NTT.Contrary to Mr Goodall's statement and to what Mr Goodall himself deposed to under oath, the fund structure through which we made our indirect investment in the Campus transaction was designed by Identity Partners and specifically approved by NTT under advisement from various advisors including Webber Wentzel Attorneys and a commercial bank. The structure was not designed with the intention of hiding our participation in the Campus transaction.In fact, what makes Mr Goodall's statement all the more inexplicable is that he knows that Grant Bodley sought and obtained permission from him (in his capacity as Bodley's boss and as a representative of NTT) to participate in the Fund.We only participated in the Fund because the Campus was considered by us and NTT to be an integral and essential part of an MBO transaction which we were actively negotiating with NTT from 2019 to 2021 and which we had been told by NTT to keep under wraps to avoid speculation and market uncertainty. NTT at all times controlled the Campus through the loan in terms of which they had provided 95% of the purchase price for the Campus and at any point they could have taken the Campus back under the loan as they have now done.Lastly, we note with concern, the deeply inappropriate but expedient nature of the timing of the release of Mr Goodall's statement. The wrongdoing which has been gratuitously attributed to us in Mr Goodall's statement is currently before the Supreme Court of Appeal, where judgment has been reserved. The entire matter is sub judice.We have full faith in the Supreme Court of Appeal, and we will not be judged by a statement made by Mr Goodall on terms dictated by his settlement agreement with NTT.

Right of Reply: Former Didata executives say Goodall's admission was dictated by NTT

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