News / National
Choppies battle heads for EGM
15 Aug 2019 at 21:10hrs | Views
The boardroom battle for Botswana and JSE-listed Choppies Enterprises Ltd, is heading for resolution by shareholders at an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) in Gaborone on 4 September 2019.
Choppies shares have been suspended on both bourses since 1 November 2018 on account of the company's auditors PwC's inability to finalise the 2018 financial statements due to certain irregularities. Earlier in the year, Choppies founder and Chief Executive, Mr Ramachandran (Ram) Ottapathu made some suggestions to the non-executive directors (NEDs) as to changes to the board and structural changes to the Company. Thereafter on 22 May 2019, the NEDs including former Botswana President, Mr Festus Mogae, suspended Mr Ottapathu.
The NEDs initiated legal and forensic reports which have now been finalised and summaries of these reports were circulated to shareholders via X-News (Botswana) and SENS (JSE) announcements on Wednesday this week.
Mr Ottapathu has been given the right of reply to the legal and forensic reports on X-News and SENS and is preparing his response. He has commented on the reports saying "the summaries are not a true reflection of the reports themselves and the detailed reports clearly indicate that I did not benefit financially in any of the transactions examined, and there is no substance to any of the money laundering allegations levelled against me in the reports and it is inconclusive in its findings".
Mr Ottapathu further stated that 'We look forward to the EGM which, hopefully, will resolve all these issues and allow us to rebuild the great company that Choppies is -- for the benefit of its stakeholders including customers, staff and shareholders. This is a business we build form scratch and I have given my life to it over the last 27 years'.
Choppies shares have been suspended on both bourses since 1 November 2018 on account of the company's auditors PwC's inability to finalise the 2018 financial statements due to certain irregularities. Earlier in the year, Choppies founder and Chief Executive, Mr Ramachandran (Ram) Ottapathu made some suggestions to the non-executive directors (NEDs) as to changes to the board and structural changes to the Company. Thereafter on 22 May 2019, the NEDs including former Botswana President, Mr Festus Mogae, suspended Mr Ottapathu.
Mr Ottapathu has been given the right of reply to the legal and forensic reports on X-News and SENS and is preparing his response. He has commented on the reports saying "the summaries are not a true reflection of the reports themselves and the detailed reports clearly indicate that I did not benefit financially in any of the transactions examined, and there is no substance to any of the money laundering allegations levelled against me in the reports and it is inconclusive in its findings".
Mr Ottapathu further stated that 'We look forward to the EGM which, hopefully, will resolve all these issues and allow us to rebuild the great company that Choppies is -- for the benefit of its stakeholders including customers, staff and shareholders. This is a business we build form scratch and I have given my life to it over the last 27 years'.
Source - agencies
