Buried in the bowels of this morning’s quarterly results announcement from Telkom we find this interesting titbit. Chief Financial Officer Jacques Schindenhutte, who was suspended last month following allegations of personal misconduct, received an interest free loan from the company worth R5 997 775.43. The loan was arranged to assist Schindenhutte to buy shares in Telkom.
Since the end of September, when the loan was approved, Telkom shares have risen R219 per share to R2 662 – which would have increased Schindenhutte’s investment by R537 633 in less than two months.
According to the report, Telkom executives are now unsure that the loan should have been approved, although TechCentral spoke to Schindenhutte this morning and quote him as saying that both the CEO and chairman of the company were aware of the loan and share purchase at the time.
From the interim report:
Telkom’s management has recognised that the loan made to such executive may not have been in compliance with the provisions of the Companies Act and will, as a matter of urgency, take the matter under advisement from its advisers for rectification and/or recovery of the amount, should that be necessary.
Elsewhere in the report, headline results were fairly unimpressive. A fact acknowledged by Telkom via a series of colour coded smileys next to the key figures. A small visual aid there for investors who don’t realise brackets mean negatives, maybe?
For what it’s worth, we counted six red frownies, 9 non-committal yellow faces and five green beamers in the report. That’s a ‘hold’ verdict, then.
More interesting than many of the figures or faces, however, is the massive increase in data traffic over the Telkom DSL network, which rose from 12 000 terabytes a month in September last year to just under 20 000TB in September this year. The number of subscribers rose a mere 50 000 to a less than inspiring 898 203. That number wasn’t broken down into business lines versus residential ones.
(Via BDLive)
