New start, or more of the same?
Ghosts of Sharemax haunt Nova's JSE plans
While it’s not exactly like listing KPMG on the JSE, the plan for Nova Property Group to list on the local bourse is still a hard sell, considering its reputational baggage. Nova grew out of the ashes of Sharemax, an infamous property syndication scheme started by Willie Botha in 1998 that hit a wall in 2010 when the Reserve Bank found it was illegally taking deposits. Botha disappeared into the sunset, and Nova was born — ostensibly as a rescue bid to salvage what was possible from Sharemax’s 50 properties and to repay the 20,000-odd investors, many of whom were elderly pensioners. But given its links to Sharemax, Nova struggled. It couldn’t raise enough money from the banks to finish building the malls, specifically its flagship Villa Retail Park in Pretoria, and the investors, who now held "debentures" over the group — instituted by Nova under a new scheme in 2011 — were trapped.Now, Nova MD Dominique Haese says the plan to list on the JSE is the "best option" for the investors w...
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