Cape Town - Lebogang Molebatsi, general manager of listed equities at the Public Investment Corporation (PIC), said he “had enough comfort” that the proposal was ready for submission to the Portfolio Management Committee (PMC) and further testified that he believed the AYO transaction was a “good investment”.

Molebatsi took the stand on Wednesday at the Western Cape High Court, to give evidence in the case in which the PIC is attempting to recover a R4.3 billion investment it made for a 29% stake in the ICT group when AYO listed on the JSE in December 2017.

He said he was not aware of the transaction entered into between former CEO, Dr Dan Matjila and AYO.

Nor was he aware of junior analyst Victor Seanie’s meeting with the Group in November 2017.

He said he had only been verbally informed after it was held. He believed that it was for the purposes of a scoping report.

Molebatsi – who was in an acting general manager position at the time –said subsequent to the meeting, Seanie had verbally discussed with him that the matter was to be taken to the PMC for listing on the JSE.

However, as Molebatsi further testified, Seanie neglected to inform him that he had, at his own volition, set in motion a due diligence process when he approached the legal, risk and ESG departments for due diligence reports, without Molebatsi’s knowledge.

Following “huge amounts of discussions” Molebatsi said he “had enough comfort” that the proposal was ready for submission to the PMC.

He said that he believed the AYO transaction was a “good investment”.

Asked about an “irrevocable commitment to approve the transaction” which the PIC made with AYO on December 4, 2017, Molebatsi said he had no knowledge of the commitment made at that time.

“(If I had known) I would have been surprised because that is not usual PIC processes,” said Molebatsi.

“It needs to be said that I held (Matjila) in high regard and I believed him to be ethical and what he was saying to me at the time I expected to be true.”

Molebatsi reiterated that while the authorised due diligence reports were absent when submissions were made to PMC, he maintained that due to the three departments having conducted their own reports, it was the impression that due diligence had been done in respect of each department having its own report.

The matter continues.

Cape Times