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Fidelity Security Group has bought corruption-accused company Bosasa's Kurgersdorp head office park for R14m.
Fidelity, who was represented by CEO Wahl Bartmann at the auction, is a national security group that owns security services company ADT, among other subsidiaries.
Bartmann confirmed the purchase to News24.
"We will use the property as part of our existing business, and will consider moving some of our staff here. I am very happy with the price. We will put the property to good use," he said.
The 8-hectare property, complete with peacocks and more than 16 office buildings with 50 000 square metres of space, is situated in Luipaardsvlei, Krugersdorp.
Succesful bids
Bosasa's two other large properties, its Rodcor copper smelting plant property near the head office, sold for R11.5m while the 26-hectare property on which Lindela Repatriation Centre sits, sold for a staggering R60m.
The identities of the other two successful bidders are not known.
This is according to Clive Lazarus of Park Village Auctions, who told News24 on Thursday around R17m was raised with the auction of roughly 140 vehicles on day one of the three day event on Wednesday.
Fourteen of these vehicles are subject to confirmation – which means they were company cars and the employees who used the cars have the first right to purchase the cars.
This includes a 2016 BMW X5 and a 2013 Porsche Cayenne Turbo S previously driven by the late Bosasa CEO, Gavin Watson, which fetched R590 000 and R500 000 at auction respectively.
Roughly 1 000 people registered to bid in the auction. After the properties were sold, the lots moved on to the various pieces of office furniture.
Urgent application
The auction went ahead despite an urgent application in the Johannesburg High Court by Jared Watson, Gavin’s nephew, who was recently appointed as a director of Bosasa.
Watson asked the court to grant an interdict stopping the auction from going ahead, pending his main application which is to have several Bosasa companies placed under business rescue, instead of liquidation.
News24 reported on Thursday that the South African Revenue Service had filed an application to intervene and oppose the urgent interdict, and the taxman would also oppose Watson’s main business rescue application.
SARS said in court papers that Bosasa and its subsidiaries owed the tax man more than R500m in unpaid taxes, penalties and interest.
The court struck the urgent application from the roll on Thursday, and awarded costs to SARS and the liquidators.
It is unclear if Watson will pursue the main application to place the companies under business rescue.
The auction continues on Friday with high-end security cameras and more than 130 large televisions, as well as industrial kitchen equipment, going under the hammer.
