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Dubai-based businessman Daniel McGowan has distanced himself from any previous involvement with the controversial Gupta family.
It has been widely reported that McGowan was a Gupta associate, a claim that he has sought to clarify and categorically deny in relation to any previous and current involvement.
In accordance with the adopted business rescue plan for Optimum Coal Mine (OCM), Liberty Coal – owned by McGowan – was just steps away from taking ownership of the assets of OCM as part of a debt-to-equity arrangement when the NPA launched its preservation application to have the assets and business of OCM preserved pending forfeiture to the state.
READ: Optimum Coal potential buyer wants to ‘buy out’ other creditors
The NPA alleged that the original purchase of the mine from Optimum Coal Holdings by the Gupta family company – Tegeta Exploration & Resources – was financed from the proceeds of unlawful activities.
In March, the NPA was successful with the preservation application it had sought. City Press believes that none of McGowan’s companies opposed the relief sought by the NPA at the preservation stage, but they intend to do so at the forfeiture stage.
The NPA has now officially launched the forfeiture application.
READ: Former Gupta associate may take over Optimum, court hears
McGowan, who purchased coal from the Gupta family’s mine through his trading company Centaur Ventures, filed a lengthy confidential memorandum to the NPA, voluntarily, stating his links to the family was merely that of a trader who saw an opportunity to purchase coal to trade on the international market. McGowan maintained that there was nothing untoward with any of his companies’ historic dealings with entities owned by the Gupta family.
Is Van den Steen the appropriate curator?
The mine is currently under a curator, Peter van den Steen of Metis Strategic Advisors, who was selected by the NPA to preserve the mine pending the hearing of the forfeiture application.
Sources privy to the ongoings of the litigation have questioned the involvement of Van den Steen after it emerged that he was one of the two business rescue practitioners (BRPs) who recommended the controversial sale of the mine on behalf of Optimum Coal Holdings to the Gupta family, to begin with, the very transaction which the NPA is criticising on the basis the transaction was funded with the proceeds of unlawful activities. These sources have cited an obvious and glaring conflict of interest – an allegation that the curator denies.
READ: NPA blocks sale of Gupta mine
City Press has learnt that Van den Steen was appointed as a senior joint BRP of Optimum Coal Holdings on August 4 2015, and on or around the same date was also appointed as a senior joint BRP of OCM.
Van den Steen oversaw the sale of Optimum Coal Holdings’ shareholding in OCM and various other subsidiaries of Optimum Coal Holdings, including Optimum Coal Terminal and Koornfontein Mines, to Tegeta Exploration & Resources with full knowledge that Tegeta was owned and controlled by the Gupta family, and that four of the major banks in South Africa had by that point closed all their accounts associated with the Gupta family.
City Press has further been made aware that one of the first items of businesses Van den Steen attended to, once appointed as a BRP of Optimum Coal Holdings, was to allegedly adjust the statutory business rescue fees prescribed by the Companies Act from the maximum amount of R2 000 per hour inclusive of VAT to R4 255 per hour inclusive of VAT.
Sources have queried Van den Steen’s financial motives and alleged that fees of R90 million were paid to Van den Steen and his co-BRP, implying that Van den Steen was more concerned by these financial incentives than he was with who the mine was being sold to.
READ: Guptas still in the battle for Optimum?
When asked to comment, Van den Steen said it was not the first time that his involvement had been questioned.
“I assume you are speaking to the unions, but my fees are regulated and agreed upon by the master of the high court.
“I am an independent curator and have no financial motives at all,” he said.
