Cape Town - Brett Kebble, the slain mining boss, owed his creditors more than half a billion rand, and with assets valued at R70 million, his estate was hopelessly insolvent, the Cape high court will be told tomorrow.
Randgold & Exploration (R&E), of which he was formerly the chief executive, would seek the provisional sequestration of Kebble's estate on the basis that its liabilities exceeded its assets, according to papers filed in court.
In a letter to Kebble's creditors dated April 3, Jeffrey Closenberg, a lawyer and executor of Kebble's estate, said he was satisfied that Kebble's estate was insolvent.
This was because the assets in the estate were valued at R70 million while the SA Revenue Service had submitted a claim of R186 million and JCI and the Randgold group told him they had prospective claims of R300 million. The remaining known creditors were estimated at R30 million.
Further claims might arise from an inquiry in terms of section 417 of the Companies Act into the trade and affairs of Tuscan Mood 1224, a company ran by Kebble, Closenberg said.
In an affidavit to support the application, Roger Pearcey, R&E's company secretary, said Kebble was "the recipient of many millions of rands, which he received out of a substantial fraud" that Kebble and George Poole, formerly the company secretary, allegedly perpetrated on R&E and its shareholders.
A new board was appointed on August 24 last year when Brett Kebble and his father, Roger, resigned.
Suspecting that former directors had managed the company's affairs in a reckless and fraudulent manner, R&E appointed Umbono Financial Advisory Services to conduct a forensic investigation into the company's trade, dealings, property and affairs.
In a subsequent report to the board, Umbono said it had evidence that several "irregular and fraudulent transactions'' had been entered into by Kebble and Poole.
One such transaction involved the alleged theft of large quantities of shares that R&E held in JSE- and Nasdaq-listed companies, which were then sold and laundered through various stockbroker's trading and banking accounts that were controlled by Kebble and Poole.
They used the bank account of their company, Tuscan Mood, to deposit the proceeds.
Poole, purporting to represent an entity called Paradigm Shift, allegedly opened a trading account for Paradigm Shift with Tradek Balderson, a stockbroking firm.
At the same time, he allegedly used a trading account of Alibiprops, which had already been opened in Tradek's books by Kebble.
Having misappropriated shares valued at R25 million, Kebble and Poole then traded those shares through the accounts of Paradigm Shift and Alibiprops.
The proceeds amounted to about R125 million, while an additional R45 million was paid in to Tuscan Mood's bank account.
Between May 2003 and March last year Kebble received R78 million, some of which he used to pay Tuscan Mood R20.5 million.