Spin doctoring is a very risky exercise. Skilled practitioners are able to turn the bleakest situation to advantage. But sometimes even the best of them can be shown to have been economic with the truth. And then the whole thing tends to blow up in their faces. Capitec faces the real prospect of this happening after its aggressive letter which we published yesterday  where it claimed Andrew Canter of Old Mutual’s Futuregrowth was “misquoted” by Bloomberg. Our blogger Charlie Graham was horrified. He sent us the riposte which is published below. And pointed us to the most damning of evidence – an interview with Canter on CNBC Africa where he repeats pretty much everything he’d said to Bloomberg. So the question now is if Bloomberg “misquoted” Canter, why did same thing to the camera? We wonder how Capitec’s spin doctors are going to respond to that. – AH
To watch the full interview with Andrew Canter on CNBC Africa, click here.
By Charlie Graham*
It is not surprising that Capitec’s marketing men are super fast out of the gates to attempt to deflect and close down the comments made by Andrew Canter in the Bloomberg article on 3 October .
They state in all encompassing headline that Canter was misquoted by Bloomberg. Furthermore they state that this is now an argument between Canter and Bloomberg.
What is more interesting is that African Bank and Transaction Capital were both named in the same Bloomberg article but they have not followed Capitec’s strategy of immediately going out on the offensive and attempting to close down the story.
As you often say the facts are the facts. The facts are that Canter was NOT misquoted. At no point has Canter stated that he was misquoted.
Let’s recall Canter’s quote on Bloomberg: “Futuregrowth Asset Management will “wind down” its holdings of bonds in Capitec Bank Holdings Ltd. (CPI), African Bank Investment Holdings Ltd. and other unsecured lenders over three to four years as the securities mature, said Chief Investment Officer Andrew Canter,” “From having the view that micro-lending was always a social good, now we’re shifting and saying maybe not, maybe there’s damage being done,” Canter said in an interview in Cape Town yesterday.
“Nobody says it’s their intention to cripple people, but de facto, that’s what’s happening.”
Subsequent to the Bloomberg article Canter was interviewed on CNBC on Friday 4th October 18h00 and re-confirmed as follows:
– personal unsecured lending is not considered developmental and is seen in the South African context as impoverishing.
– he can no longer defend micro-lending anymore as an industry as its not developmental like housing finance or SMME financing that Grameen bank is all about.
– consolidating borrower’s debt into a five year, R 50,000 , 32% loan plus fees to him is a form of financial enslavement.
– borrowing money for five years in the personal unsecured lending space to pay for consumer goods is impoverishing and not developmental.
* Charlie Graham is a research analyst at a major money manager. He wants to be able to share his thoughts freely so prefers using a nom de plume.Â
