Awaiting the fate of a man of Tshepo Mahloele’s calibre is torturous

The Harith fund fees were 1.75% to 2% management fees, plus an incentive structure where it would earn 20% of all returns higher than 8% in US dollars, the funding currency. That means investors in the funds only start paying incentive fees after they get, in cash, annualised, the minimum hurdle return rate (8% in this case) in dollars. Neither fund has paid incentives yet, but returns on the second fund are, right now, huge.

Mahloele made his big money in Capitec, as one of the people who put together a BEE consortium to buy 10% of the bank in 2007 at R32 a share — no discount — with a R300m loan from the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC). In 2012 the consortium sold half its Capitec stake to the PIC to pay back the debt.

Since then Mahloele has been quietly buying out other consortium members and, through another of his companies, Lebashe, now controls almost 7% of Capitec, with financial help from Investec and Absa. This week the Capitec share hovers at about R1,640 and its market capitalisation is almost R190bn. For the doubters, 7% of that is serious money.