Sunday World can today lift the veil on what triggered the nasty public spat between Investec’s joint CEO Fani Titi and his erstwhile business partner-turned nemises Peter-Paul Ngwenya.
Titi and a partner at a boutique law firm, Tugendhaft Wapnick Banchetti (TWB), have been accused by Ngwenya of colluding to swindle him out of millions of rand in dividends.
Ngwenya, a former Umkhonto weSizwe operative who spent five years on Robben Island, said in court papers he was duped by Titi and TWB partner Zoe Banchetti.
He said Banchetti was introduced to him by Titi as the attorney who was representing both Columbia (Ngwenya’s company) and Alphabet (Titi’s company) in a R48.8-million deal to buy Gagasi FM and Heart FM more than 10 years ago.
Ngwenya said Investec funded the deal to the tune of R32.6-million (the loan was supposed to be serviced out of dividends and secured by the assets being acquired), while he and Titi were supposed to raise the balance of R16.2-million.
However, he said he and Columbia did not have the required capital. Ngwenya said Titi then offered to lend Columbia the R8.1-million needed to conclude the deal with a “verbal loan agreement”.
Ngwenya then alleges that what he had agreed on with Titi was not what Banchetti drafted and “made him sign” without reading thoroughly as “the first applicant’s [Titi’s] driver was waiting”.
“When it later appeared that Banchetti had been rewarded by the applicant [Titi] by giving her [Banchetti] shares in Tsiya [Titi’s investment vehicle], my previous concerns as to the ethical nature of her advice and conduct were heightened and I looked anew at my various interactions with her,” said Ngwenya in his affidavit.
“As it later turned out, many of the agreements and documents presented to me by Banchetti for signature contained sophisticated financial and legal structures and implications of which I was unaware, the essence and import of which both Banchetti and the first applicant consistently failed to alert me [to].”
Sunday World has independently established that Banchetti served on the Tsiya board from 2008 to 2009. Ngwenya was convicted of crimen injuria last year for using the k-word in reference to Titi for allegedly owing him millions in dividends.
Tsiya currently holds nearly R4 million in dividends due to Columbia in an interest-bearing acccount until Titi’s claim that he holds shares in Columbia is settled in court.
Banchetti said: “I should tell you that this is not the only forum or occasion that Mr Ngwenya – whom I have never represented – has trotted out allegations concerning me personally, which are scurrilous and vexatious and are devoid of any merit whatsoever,” Banchetti wrote in an e-mailed response.
“They [Ngwenya’s allegations] are also per se defamatory. In fact, Mr Ngwenya’s complaint against me was, to his knowledge, dismissed.
This, of course, is aside from Mr Ngwenya’s criminal conviction, in respect of Mr Titi, who our firm does represent in proceedings instituted against Mr Ngwenya.”
By Kabelo Khumalo
The R8m loan that sparked a feud between old friends
