{"id":13953,"date":"2021-04-16T10:24:39","date_gmt":"2021-04-16T10:24:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amabhungane.org\/?post_type=stories&#038;p=13953"},"modified":"2024-09-19T16:56:32","modified_gmt":"2024-09-19T16:56:32","slug":"211604update-another-bank-abandons-iqbal-surve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/211604update-another-bank-abandons-iqbal-surve\/","title":{"rendered":"Update: Another bank abandons Iqbal Surv\u00e9"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Media mogul Iqbal Surv\u00e9\u2019s business empire received another body blow after a second bank refused to do business with Ayo Technology Solutions, the most controversial of the companies indirectly controlled by his Sekunjalo Investment Holdings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">FNB will cease its banking services to Ayo on 3 May, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.moneyweb.co.za\/mny_sens\/ayo-technology-solutions-limited-transactional-banking-facilities-and-cautionary-announcement\/\">company announced<\/a>&nbsp; on the JSE\u2019s SENS news service yesterday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">News of FNB\u2019s decision to dump Ayo follows amaBhungane\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/amabhungane.org\/stories\/210331-absa-does-a-gupta-on-iqbal-surve\/\">revelation two weeks ago<\/a> that Absa had cut ties with all companies directly or indirectly controlled by Sekunjalo. This included three companies listed on the JSE: Ayo, African Equity Empowerment Investments and Premier Fishing &amp; Brands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Surv\u00e9 now faces the very real possibility of the kind of bank boycott that helped destroy the Gupta family\u2019s South African operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>If you like this story and want more, subscribe to our <\/em><em><u><a href=\"https:\/\/amabhungane.org\/#signup\">newsletter<\/a><\/u><\/em><em> and be the first to get our latest news and investigations.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Although the Absa decision was made in August last year, none of the Sekunjalo companies made any announcement to the market about this potentially ruinous development. But following our article on Absa, Ayo made the FNB move public. Ayo has launched an interdict application to halt FNB\u2019s decision, the company said in its SENS announcement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This seems unlikely to help. Last year, Premier Fishing quietly abandoned a court application to interdict Absa\u2019s closure of its accounts four days after the bank filed responding papers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Other banks that have provided accounts to Ayo \u2013 at least up to September last year \u2013 include Nedbank, Investec, Bank of China, Standard Bank and Albaraka. Among these only Bank of China held very significant Ayo deposits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Judging by the most recent financial statements of Ayo, African Equity and Premier Fishing, only Ayo utilized FNB to any meaningful extent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is possible that the wider Sekunjalo group might already have lost other banking facilities or may lose them in the near future. Sekunjalo itself is a private company and has no reason to announce who it banks with. It did not bank with Absa, as can be gleaned from Absa\u2019s court papers last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The last time financial statements were available for Surv\u00e9\u2019s crown jewel, Independent Media, the newspaper publishing group banked with Standard Bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FNB has followed Absa\u2019s cue and cut ties with Surv\u00e9. It is entirely possible other banks will follow suit \u2013 or have already done so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":21274,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[362,51,364,52,580,259],"class_list":["post-13953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories","tag-absa","tag-ayo-technology-solutions","tag-fnb","tag-iqbal-surve","tag-premier-fishing","tag-sekunjalo"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13953"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30133,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13953\/revisions\/30133"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}