Lightcatch Limited, better known as Betfred, which claims to be the biggest independent bookmaker in the world, is seeking the permission of the Gauteng Gambling Board to buy Sepels Sportsbet. Betfred, mainly based in the UK, has disclosed to the board that they would use their South African operation, Betfred SA, to own 70% of Sepels and that a brand new entity, Leaena (Pty) Ltd would hold the other 30%.
The shareholder of Leaena is the powerhouse South African businesswoman Thoko Mokgosi-Mwantembe, who was SA Businesswoman of the Year in 2007 and previously the chief executive of Alcatel SA and Hewlett Packard SA. She is also a director at Vodacom.
In a general notice to the public on April 5, 2022, the Gauteng Gambling Board announced the intention of Betfred to buy Sepels and invited interested parties to make submissions if they objected to the transaction.
The Star obtained a copy of the application that Morne Pieterse, head of Legal and Compliance of Betfred SA submitted to the board.
Pieterse informed the Board he did not want to disclose the sale agreement between Betfred and Sepels because it contained confidential information.
Sepels had been for sale for many years after the death of its founder, Cyril Sepel in 2013. The jewel in the crown of Sepels is the cluster of the 12 gambling licences they claim to own in Gauteng.
Prior to the board announcing the intended transaction and inviting the public to comment and object, The Star was approached by a whistle-blower who informed us of the intended transaction and the controversy that surrounds it.
“The licences were in Cyril’s name and after his death fell within his deceased estate. Many local companies looked at buying Sepels but couldn’t get around the fact that the licences, worth more than R100 million, were not in the company’s name but in Cyril’s name.
“Ask his son Glenn, who also happens to be the executor of Cyril’s estate, and Mike Lemon how the licences were transferred out of his name to the company’s name.”
Glenn Sepel resides in Australia and Mike Lemon, a previous director of the company, lives in Johannesburg.
As part of our investigation and cautious to simply publish allegations made by whistle-blowers, on March 23, two weeks before the public announcement of the transaction, we reached out to Pieterse, Sepel and Lemon, asking for comment on the allegation that the licences were in Cyril Sepel’s name and not in the name of the company.
We wanted to understand how the licenses were moved from the deceased estate to the company to the satisfaction of Betfred and their lawyers, who would have done an extensive due diligence on Sepels Sportsbet.
We also sought to know who their lawyers and auditors were that advised them throughout the negotiations since the lawyers and auditors must have been satisfied that Sepels was now the lawful holder of the licences.
Lemon responded: “I unfortunately cannot assist you with your questions as I left the business two years ago.”
The whistle-blower remarked that: “The issue with this response is that he was involved in the business for two decades and knows that the licences were in Cyril’s name. They were good friends. Late last year he was still a director”.
The Star verified that Lemon’s resignation as a director of Sepels, according to official documentation, was on October 20, 2021 and not two years ago as he claimed.
Pieterse, on behalf of Betfred SA, simply said that he was unaware of the allegations with regard to the licences belonging to a deceased estate and couldn’t comment.
He, however, failed to disclose the details of his lawyers and auditors for our investigating team to engage regarding the allegations made. There is no indication from Pieterse that Betfred intended investigating the allegations. In his disclosure to the board, no mention is made about the fact that the licences they intended obtaining fell within the estate of Cyril Sepel and were not Sepels Sportsbet’s to sell.
But it was the response of Glenn Sepel that has caused The Star to deepen its investigations. He is more concerned about getting to the identity of the whistle-blower than to deal with the allegations, claiming in his response: “The level of detail in your questions as well as various factual statements which was part of a failed bidder process, gives me a good idea where this originates from. I hope my responses will assist in getting any media hereon to be factually correct and in public interest.”
Sepel also undertook to respond to questions of a confidential nature. Sepel, despite all the undertakings and statements, then omits to deal with answering the questions we posed to him about the licences or any other issue we raised.
He does not even provide the name of the lawyers advising him or Sepels Sportsbet on the transaction. “This is how he rolls,” the whistle-blowers said. “He talks and talks but says nothing. He must simply disclose how his company obtained the 12 licences from his father’s estate. The answer is a one-liner, if the correct processes were followed. Hopefully the Gambling Board will get to the bottom of this in their process to approve the transaction.”
The Star is investigating the matter further. This is a developing story.