Conduit Capital is not exactly a household name, although the investment holding company, whose main asset is Constantia Insurance, boasts shareholders like RECM and Ellerine Bros. But the firm appears to have lost its focus, and its last set of results - a rambling essay from CEO Jason Druian - may have had more than a few investors scratching their heads. Druian is now out, after a board shake-up in which US-based investor Riskowitz Capital was key. Druian has now sold most of his 9.7% stake in Conduit Capital. Business Times spoke to Sean Riskowitz, the South African CEO of Riskowitz Capital and now Conduit's director, about the changes.Is this a boardroom putsch and, if not, what is it?No, I would say that it's a change in the direction of the company. Jason and his team, including the board members who are stepping down, founded the company ... which was meant to be an entity that facilitated M&A-type activity. One thing led to another, and 10 years later they sit as they are today with an insurance company as well as the ownership in ARA [Anthony Richards & Associates - a debt collections business] and some investments.Are you saying that Conduit deviated from its original strategy?What it set out to be originally and what it is today are two different things.I think that the opportunity for the company ... was to pursue investments in the insurance space specifically, and that started with their move from the investment board to the short-term insurance board [on the JSE]. But it became apparent that despite all of the skills on the Conduit board, there isn't really any insurance expertise [or] insurance experience. Jason himself is a fantastic businessman ... but we sat down and said: "Look, do you want to continue in insurance, how do you see the company going forward?" He's not really an insurance person - his expertise is new companies and investments and entrepreneurial activities - so we amicably decided to take the company in a direction that it was already sort of heading in, but equip it better with people that we put on the board ... people with long-term insurance experience ...So you haven't forced Jason out - he left of his own accord?Absolutely. It's really a mutual decision in the best interest of the company and its current shareholder base.How much of Conduit Capital will Riskowitz end up with?We are restricted to 14.9%, because if we go over that level we need FSB approval.Are there any plans to delist Conduit?No intention whatsoever. Our intention is not to sell the company - any parts of the company. We want to grow it.Conduit's last results were quite something - more a treatise than a set of financials - what are the 'four money pots' for example? And it all sounds really good until you look at the operating profit, which slumped from almost R50-million in 2013 to just under R2-million. Things can't be going that well?I think that kind of feeds into the point earlier about the fact that people were a little bit confused and remain confused as to what exactly Conduit Capital does and what the strategy of the business is. The problem, certainly from a shareholder point of view, was: are we an investment company, are we an insurer? Are we looking to buy majority stakes in private businesses?Will you focus on all aspects of the insurance sector or will you concentrate on one?Constantia has licences in all lines of insurance. So while most of its business today is short-term, it does also have long term business - although that's a smaller part of the whole. Constantia certainly has opportunity, in my view, to build on its technical expertise ... it's going to be a diversified insurance company.Would you have to buy businesses?We have an extremely competent fellow by the name of Robert Shaw who runs Constantia; he's supported by a lot of technically advanced skills that we think have the capacity to grow [the company] both organically and/or by acquisition. What we're bringing to the table is a long-term oriented and supportive shareholder framework ...Some of the fund managers I spoke to were unhappy about Conduit's remuneration policies - excessively in favour of the executive. Do you agree?I can't really comment because I was not involved in the remuneration and nominations committee and the processes that ... got to the numbers that people were being paid. We're going to have a new director leading the remunerations committee and that committee will decide who's going to be paid what. I can tell you that my remuneration is going to be very low relative to the other executives.Was Conduit used as a vehicle to pay the executives well, at the expense of shareholders?I don't think that's a really good argument. If you look at since when they listed, on a book value to net-asset value, the returns have been there. They've compounded book value since they listed in 2006 at round about 18% a year, which is a reasonably good return.What is Riskowitz Capital all about and what's your interest?I represent Midbrook Lane as well as Riskowitz Capital. Those entities are the same in terms of what they offer to investors: long-term, value-oriented investment in great companies, managed by great people, with opportunities to compound their intrinsic value at high rates over time. We have a very concentrated portfolio of companies that we invest in and Conduit's one of them and one where we see a lot of opportunity.Talevi is a BDTV presenter..