A good week for Kennedy Bungane

A good week for Kennedy Bungane

If Kennedy Bungane doesn’t deserve all the credit for the apparent revival of African Bank, the CEO has been able to take curtain calls in its rise from curatorship ashes. He can share some of the plaudits with Craig du Plessis, who has already recovered R7.1bn from the bank’s historic bad debt on behalf of Residual Debt Services. This has allowed Bungane to manage the hived-off retail arm, where he is making good on his promises to go back to the bank’s roots, while while moving into the future with better digital services. 

A bad week for Graham O’Connor

It seemed obvious to everyone — evidently besides Spar’s board — that Graham O’Connor should never have stepped directly from the CEO position into the position of company chair last year. Not only was he never going to be an independent chair, but he also did a fortune of personal business with the company, which raises other clear conflicts. But it’s revealing of the company’s disregard for governance, and an indictment that it took public pressure to force him to give up the chair for the role of an ordinary nonexecutive director. Little wonder Spar’s stock has tumbled 20% over the past month.