An arms dealer who holds the local franchise for the Build-a-Bear Workshop has bought the "black empowerment" shares in military aviation company Aerosud, one of South Africa's two "risk partners" in the manufacturing of Europe's A400M Airbus.
Aerosud has confirmed that Ivor Ichikowitz, an arms and oil broker who has flown Nelson Mandela and President Jacob Zuma around for free, has acquired a 19 percent stake in the company.
The deal was done through a holding company called Friedshelf 1000, part of Ichikowitz's international aerospace company, the Paramount Group. Paramount is registered in Cyprus and South Africa.
Ichikowitz, 43, is a Joburg businessman who has business interests ranging from dealing in and remanufacturing military materiel to soft toys.
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The selling off of shares by BEE group Phatsima was revealed by Weekend Argus last week - just as the government entered urgent renegotiations with Airbus, threatening a possible cancellation of its order of eight of the planes. It is believed that the Phatisma/ Friedshelf shares transaction was worth about R24 million.
Phatsima chairman Herman Mashaba bought into Aerosud in 2005 soon after the government signed the industrial participation deal with the Airbus Military consortium. His partners included National Assembly Speaker Max Sisulu, Ronnie Mamoepa, now the spokesman for the Home Affairs Ministry, and Titus Mafolo, a former presidential adviser.
Government empowerment economic policies require a BEE component in state-backed joint-venture deals.
Ichikowitz made headlines earlier this year when he confirmed that he had paid for a flight to take Mandela to a rally in the Eastern Cape just before the April elections where he appeared on stage with Zuma.
Last year he flew Zuma to Lebanon and Kazakhstan for meetings in his capacity as ANC president at an estimated cost of more than R5m.
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