27 March 2019 - 20:53A BEE company that sought to borrow money from the Public Investment Corporation to buy a stake in Total SA was coerced into merging with another consortium at the instruction of the state-owned asset manager.
Mulaudzi says KiliCap submitted a binding offer to buy the Total stake in July 2015 that included an unconditional undertaking from the PIC to provide the R1.7bn in funding.“As Kilicap we found this to be strange because the PIC had signed a binding engagement letter with us which in our view implied exclusivity,” he said.
Mulaudzi described how he was called to a meeting with PIC CEO Dan Matjila and told to form a consortium for the transaction with Sipho Mseleku from a company called Sakhumnotho. Mulaudzi stated how he and his co-directors at Kilicap realised they would not obtain the required approval letter from the PIC that had to be signed by Matjila.He said in response to questions from commissioner Gill Marcus that should Kilicap not have merged with Sakhumnotho, it would have walked away from the deal and been responsible for paying the R38m commitment fee to the PIC.