Johann Rupert, chairman of luxury goods giant Richemont and investment firm Remgro, likes to say that having changed course after his early years in investment banking at Lazard Frères and Chase Manhattan, he’s now a "reformed prostitute". It’s an inside joke that will have many investment bankers smirking into their martinis, even if they don’t agree wholesale. Part of their job, as Rupert suggests, is to visit boardrooms and pitch deals to CEOs hoping they’ll bite, in exchange for a fee. For those who’ve been sold a dud, it’s less funny. You can imagine, for example, that there wouldn’t be too many laughs in the executive suites at Mediclinic, which did a horror deal to buy Abu Dhabi-based Al Noor in 2015 for US$2.3bn. Or at Brait, which bought British fashion chain New Look for R14.5bn, only to write it down to zero two years later. At Remgro’s AGM three months ago, when Rupert was asked if he intended to stick by Mediclinic, he answered: "Mediclinic is a very well-run business t...

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