BELL POTTINGER
SIMON LINCOLN READER: Hasta la vista, you managers of ill-repute
The trashing of Dr Anton Rupert’s legacy, arguably SA’s greatest entrepreneur, was an attempt to rewrite the country’s business narrative
Obviously, I was delighted to hear last week about Bell Pottinger’s decision to drop the Guptas, but I was even more delighted to read their melancholic, whimpering statement; if you closed your eyes, it sounded like a bunch of Tim Henman fans dragging their bottom lips out of Wimbledon after yet another quarter-final castration of deluded expectations. But this is the thing about reputation managers: they are extremely disappointing. In 2013, I remember watching a series of embarrassing events unfold as the country scrambled to fathom what Oscar Pistorius had just done. There, it was a local bunch of reputation managers who were making the events embarrassing, with pathetic, unconvincing statements issued about Oscar’s remorse. I wondered for a long time exactly what Bell Pottinger was doing for the Guptas, then I wondered even more when I read correspondence Peter Bruce received from Bell Pottinger’s local Tokyo Rose on the job, one Victoria Geoghegan: "Our role," she declared, "h...
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