Guptas were offered R600m for sale of ANN7, The New Age – report
The influential family dropped an offer to purchase their media assets for R600m opting instead for former GCIS head Mzwanele Manyi's R450m vendor finance deal.
03 November 2016. The front page of the Gupta-owned The New Age newspaper blares the headline: Thuli’s report is ‘flawed’ following the release of the State of Capture report.
Southern Star Mega Investors Group, a consortium led by Nazeer Noormohamed, has spoken out about a R600 million offer they put forward to the Gupta family to purchase Infinity Media, which houses all their media assets.
According to City Press, Noormohamed said his company was ready to give the Guptas R600 million of which 70% would be in cash and 30% in shares. Noormohamed and his partners were apparently shocked when the sale went to Manyi instead, in a deal the Guptas financed themselves.
Noormohamed says he was shown the offices of ANN7 by the station’s political analyst Tshepo Kgadima.
“We were just waiting for the acceptance of the offer letter, which would have been followed by other processes …We were shocked when we heard the announcement they sold it to Lodidox for R450 million.
“Kgadima told us that the Guptas would not settle for anything less than R600 million,” said Noormohamed.
Kgadima has since denied this, while Manyi said the insinuation that he was fronting for the Guptas was insulting.
“So basically, you people have a problem either way. I get it on an ‘inflated’ price, you complain. I get it on an ‘undervalued’ price, you still complain. What the hell do you people want?”
The Guptas declined to comment.
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