Dennis Finch is an angry man. Finch, the former managing director of King Consolidated (Kingco), was described this week in the Financial Mail as having been dismissed. That, he says, is nonsense.
He resigned, he claims, in April because he could no longer tolerate the persistent interference of the major shareholder, East London businessman Tony Cotterell.
Finch is also incensed at the actions of Kingco's new management, which, he says, has been addressing groups of franchisees in the nationwide chains it owns, and telling them that he (Finch) indulged in practices tantamount to fraud. He is now contemplating taking legal action.
This comes hard on the heels of news that Kingco is to sue its former management following a forensic audit of the company. Kingco chairman Paul Yiannakis was not available for comment.
Cotterell makes a practice of buying into companies that are experiencing hard times, presumably on the theory that the upside potential is considerable.
He has followed this with McCarthy Retail, of which he is the largest private shareholder, Paradigm and Kingco.
Finch, who was Kingco's founder, listed the company in 1996 with its Mike's Kitchen chain, and then went on to buy others - Keg, McGinty's, Bimbo, Saddle Steak Houses and the Porterhouse chain.
He says that while these firms did well at first, they ran into problems after the profit warranties expired. Saddles, sold with a warranty of R2 million net profit annually, deteriorated within a year to a R1 million loss.
Kingco's profits dropped off in 1998 and 1999. The Lusitania Distribution Group, bought from the Fernandes family, was a huge offender.
This was when Cotterell appeared on the scene. Initially he bought a small stake, which he increased gradually until he ended up with 51 percent.
After that, according to Finch, Cotterell's attitude changed. Finch complains that Cotterell frequently attended board meetings though he was not a director and took to issuing arbitrary instructions. The result, says Finch, was that they butted heads more than once.
Finch claims he was eventually suspended without the approval of the board. He was accused of obstructing a forensic investigation. He has also been accused of voting himself unauthorised pay increases (he says these were precisely in line with those awarded generally) and it has been suggested he might be responsible for a contingent liability for unpaid taxes which, he says, he regards as a veiled threat.
A message I received a fortnight ago from one of Cotterell's corporate financiers asked if I would meet with him. Yes, of course. Among the questions I want answered is who and what is the Breakwater Trust.
I first raised this issue in Business Report on June 28 when I revealed that the Breakwater Trust had bought 8 million Paradigm shares on behalf of Cotterell, for which payment was made through Clariden, a small Zurich bank.
At the time, Cotterell's brother, Paul, told me Breakwater was owned by a friend. He said he would disclose the identity of the trust's beneficiary the following week. I am still waiting.
It seems Cotterell is now at the centre of yet another corporate argument that is turning messy. He obviously has some serious cleaning up to attend to.
Spindoctoring as the art of turning unpalatable information into advantageous news is a widely used practice.
In an article this week in a daily business newspaper, attention was drawn to the manner in which spindoctors had constructed the return to public favour of disgraced former cricket captain Hansie Cronje.
He has received increasing support from a wide array of personalities who themselves command widespread respect. And in two separately conducted straw polls among the general public, the level of support for Cronje was astonishingly better than 90 percent.
What was ignored, however, was the full extent of the response this has earned. Just ahead of Cronje's application to the constitutional court to rule that the life ban imposed on him by the United Cricket Board is illegal, came the thunderbolt news that a forensic audit had uncovered myriad foreign bank accounts held by Cronje.
It was alleged that through these accounts he laundered, over a period, more than R10 million. Cronje denies these allegations. Interestingly, Cronje did not have sight of the audit before it hit the national press.
The timing of the revelations is conveniently coincidental, just ahead of what may be a watershed legal action. When it comes to manipulation, it is clear the United Cricket Board and its advisers have been quick to learn hard lessons.