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‘Moyo will fail in bid to declare Old Mutual board delinquent’ – Manuel

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Old Mutual chairperson Trevor Manuel has assured his co-board members at the major insurer that Peter Moyo’s bid to have the entire board declared delinquent would fail dismally.

Addressing the media during press conference at the Old Mutual Insure premises in Parktown earlier today, Manuel reiterated the company’s stance that the company was not wrong to axe Moyo as its chief executive in June.

This was despite the company losing two cases court rulings on the matter and claiming the ceremonial victory of being granted leave to appeal.

Read: Old Mutual fights back: Untrue assertions lift Peter Moyo’s reputation

Asked if the board was unanimous in its decision to pursue the matter considering Moyo’s counter-pursuit requesting the court to declare all its members delinquent, Manuel said there was no chance at all of the court granting Moyo that request. The court was yet to make a ruling on that matter.

“I think there is a massive hurdle that is not being articulated and merely because you have seen it in the papers, doesn’t give it snowball’s hope of hell of being realised,” Manuel said.

Manuel also took a swipe at the judgment delivered by Judge Brian Mashile a fortnight ago when the court lost another bid to stop Moyo from returning to work.

“One of the responsibilities of the board is to appoint a chief executive and the judge takes away that responsibility from us. It’s an odd thing in the context of company law. We are duty-bound to appeal that kind of judgment because if you take a board, imbue it responsibility and accountability, and you get that overturned by a single individual who happens to wear a robe, I think we have a bit of a difficulty. We must take that matter on appeal,” Manuel said.

He later withdrew the statement referring to a sitting judge as “an individual who just happens to wear a robe”, but this was only after being urged to do so by a member of the media.

Read: Old Mutual battle is draining share value

Manuel, flanked by several members of the board and some executives, also admitted that the company did not know how its own representative on the board of NMT Capital, Mobasheer Patel, voted during a vote on dividend payouts that is currently also in the centre of the dispute with Moyo.

Patel, Manuel said, in any way owed a fiduciary duty to NMT Capital ahead of Old Mutual and his priority was NMT Capital.


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