Tokyo lives it up on R2m a month, says 'skint' Judy

Explosive affidavits filed in the High Court in Johannesburg say that Tokyo Sexwale's living expenses exceed R2-million a month.

The estranged wife of the former presidential hopeful and business tycoon, Judy Sexwale, has partly lifted the veil of secrecy that surrounded his wealth after he became minister of human settlements. He left the government last year.

"I do not live a life of extravagant luxury but the family is comfortable ... [Judy] deluded herself into believing that I was a billionaire," says Sexwale in court papers, responding to a fresh legal bid by Judy Sexwale to extract higher maintenance payments from him, pending their divorce.

Judy Sexwale is seeking a temporary order, known as rule 43 of the high court, for maintenance of R150000 a month and a contribution towards the substantial legal costs she has incurred since their acrimonious separation.

Joining government

When Sexwale was a cabinet minister, he earned about R2-million a year. This is the amount (according to bank statements between March 2013 and February 2014) that he now spends monthly. The statements were obtained by Judy Sexwale's legal team.

The statements also show that his average "monthly personal expenses" are R1.9-million, excluding payments of about R994000 by one of the family trusts to aviation companies.

When Sexwale became a cabinet minister in 2009, he was worth R1.9-billion in listed equities. He then cut ties with the corporate world and placed his business interests in "blind trusts".

Less than two years after Judy Sexwale moved out of their R60-million mansion in Sandhurst, Johannesburg, she says in her affidavit that she does not know "where to turn". Her finances are under tremendous strain because of mounting legal bills.

She says she once led a life of "great extravagance" with overseas holidays, private jets, helicopter day trips, private bankers and lavish gifts including - for several years - a R1-million cheque at Christmas.

"He was proud when our bankers told him I was nothing like the wives of our other billionaire clients in my spending patterns ... I was never subject to any limit," she says.

Sexwale has continued to enjoy the same standard of living, funded by their trusts, "while my standard of living has changed dramatically", she says.

She intends to hire forensic and specialist investigators to peel back layers that she believes hide vast wealth behind a complex corporate web of companies and trusts.

The Sexwales were married in community of property.

Complex estate

In his court filings, Sexwale says his estate is "not complex".

"[She] has conflated the issues which relate to me with the issues that relate to the trusts," he says.

"I deny that I have not been open and transparent ... I have no hidden assets."

Judy Sexwale has been paid R50000 a month in maintenance and an additional R55000 by one of the Sexwale family trusts to rent a home.

She and their two adult children have moved four times in the past year, she says, because the Sexwale trustees refuse to buy her a house in Cape Town. According to a Constitutional Court ruling, details of divorce proceedings may be published - except for the names of the affected parties.

Sexwale says in his affidavit that he "wished" their divorce to be "amicable, dignified, private". However, his attorney, Billy Gundelfinger, confirmed to a speculative media in February last year that Sexwale was his client and was getting divorced.

Wim Trengove SC has been briefed by Gundelfinger to act for Sexwale. Judy Sexwale has briefed senior counsel Chris Loxton.

Sexwale describes his wife's rule 43 application as "libellous, irrelevant fabrications; speculative, unsavoury, vexatious and untrue".

Judy Sexwale claims in her filing papers in the divorce that she was physically and emotionally abused by her husband.

Sexwale denies this, saying in his affidavit, filed in May: "She was not the woman that I married and loved for many years ... she was confrontational and quarrelsome ... with staff whom she racially abused."

Living the high life

Sexwale says he terminated his wife's use of credit cards "as she was spending, at times, in excess of R25000 per day".

Judy Sexwale says they lived a "lifestyle of great extravagance", but her estranged husband says that "after leaving politics and for a few years thereafter, we lived at a high standard".

In January this year, New World Wealth consulting named Sexwale the third-richest man in South Africa, with a net worth of $200-million (about R2.2-billion). In his replying affidavit, Sexwale takes issue with the amount he was said to have earned from Mvelaphanda Resources Limited when the group was unbundled.

"I deny that I told [Judy] or the children that I would acquire in excess of R30-billion for the sale of shares consequent upon the unbundling of the Mvela Group. I informed [Judy] that I would receive R30-million from Mvelaphanda Resources consequent upon the exercise of certain share options when Mvela group was unbundled."

Sexwale says that the TJS Trust owned shares in Mvelaphanda but that he resigned in 2009. He said he made only R1.5-million last year and R1.2-million in 2012. Yet his monthly expenditure shows various companies, housed in trusts, paying money into his personal bank account.

Not mine

He claims throughout his affidavit that he has no insight into the affairs of his trusts - either the TJS Family Trust (Tokyo Judy Sexwale), the TJS Houghton Trust or a third family trust.

Sexwale says he was not a trustee of his own trusts either and that "neither trust is my alter ego". In Sexwale's 60-page affidavit, he denies ownership of private jets, a Mozambican island, farms and luxury homes.

"I deny that [she] was given a Lear Jet 45 and a Gulfstream III Jet as gifts ... the planes were not hers, but those of companies, the shares of which are held in the trust," says Sexwale.

"I don't own any immovable properties."

Sexwale says the family trusts do not own the properties either. "The Houghton trust doesn't own the properties ... these properties are owned by various entities, the shares of which are owned by the Houghton trust."

Judy Sexwale, in her affidavit, says there is abundant evidence that he was "intimately" involved in every purchase.

Sexwale denies that he owns:
A R60-million Sandhurst house;
An R8-million Houghton home;
The R30-million Oude Kelder wine farm in Fransch-hoek;
A La Mer, Clifton, home with a value of R100-million, according to one of Sexwale's trustees;
The Dinokeng luxury game lodge; and
The Indian ocean island luxury resort Quilálea.

Sexwale denies that he ever bought the wine farm.

"I deny that I purchased Oude Kelder. Oude Kelder was purchased by a company of which I'm neither a shareholder nor a director," he says in the affidavit.
Newspaper reporters and the Top Billing television programme interviewed the Sexwales at Oude Kelder in 2004.

"I had been looking for two years for an appropriate farm," Sexwale said in the interview. "By 'appropriate' I mean boutique. I didn't want to get into major wine farming - that is a full-on business. It had to be a farm with its own label.
"I wanted to feel the mountains and not to hear cars. At night, the sky had to be as black as it gets."

The day Top Billing visited the Sexwale home, it was full of friends, food and wine.
"The area's first black farmer loves to entertain," City Press reported at the time.

In his filings, Sexwale says he does not know why he has been, for many years, on various rich lists.
"I take no responsibility for sensational news reports."

In April, Judy Sexwale filed a notice in terms of rule 43 in the High Court in Johannesburg asking for more maintenance and a substantial contribution to her legal costs in divorcing Sexwale after a 21-year-long marriage. Sexwale filed his replying affidavit in May and Judy Sexwale filed another supplementary affidavit in July.

The Sunday Times obtained copies of these signed documents, which are in the public domain. The Sunday Times has learnt that Judy Sexwale has since withdrawn her application and intends to bring a new one.

jurgensa@sundaytimes.co.za
joubertp@sundaytimes.co.za

Inside Tokyo and Judy Sexwale's finances. Get more details here.