Johannesburg - Shares in Oakbay Resources and Energy tumbled 16 percent yesterday, extending sharp losses to a second session in a row after its chairman and chief executive resigned on Friday, citing a “sustained political attack”.
Oakbay, which houses mining assets of the wealthy Gupta family, fell 9.96 percent to R21.61 by 9.56am. The shares extended their decline, falling 16.67 percent to close at R20 on the JSE.
Read: Oakbay keen to talk to banks
Nazeem Howa, the chief executive of Oakbay Investments, which is entirely owned by members of the Gupta family, said yesterday that he hoped to convince at least one local bank to re-establish relations.
“We will be talking to all four banks this week and assuring them of our governance being in place and the correctness of what we’ve done,” Howa told Bloomberg TV.
South Africa’s four biggest banks had given Oakbay until the end of May before its accounts would be closed, he said.
Read: Oakbay shares extend losses
The Gupta family’s businesses span media, computers, mining and engineering. Howa said 7 500 jobs were under threat because the businesses could not operate without those bank accounts.
He also said members of the Gupta family, who are friends of President Jacob Zuma, had not fled the country following a wave of controversy surrounding their alleged influence over the nation’s leader.
“They are not hiding,” he said in Johannesburg. “They have not fled the country.”
Rapport newspaper claimed on Sunday that the Gupta family had left the country, citing flight data and an unidentified eyewitness at a Johannesburg airport.
Atul Gupta and Varun Gupta resigned their positions at Johannesburg-listed Oakbay Resources and Energy, which is 80 percent owned by Oakbay Investments, the company said on Friday.
The announcement came after financial services groups, including accounting firm KPMG and Barclays Africa’s Absa unit, dropped the company and other Gupta-controlled businesses as clients, as questions about the family’s influence over Zuma mounted.
Zuma’s son, Duduzane, who stepped down as a director of the company’s Shiva Uranium unit, said he was planning to divest from the businesses.
Cas Coovadia, the head of the Banking Association of South Africa, said the banks did not agree among themselves to close Oakbay’s accounts.
“It’s not at all a co-ordinated effort by the banks, it can’t be. That would be anti-competitive,” he said yesterday.
“These are individual banking decisions. For a major company, if you don’t have an auditor, then you’re going to have some problem.”
BUSINESS REPORT