'Hijack': Regiments Capital pays price for defying Guptas
Refusal to sell sees financial advisory company out of deals with SOEs
"It's a hijack." That is how Regiments Capital executive chairman Litha Nyhonyha and executive director Niven Pillay this week summed up an attempt by the Guptas to buy a 51% stake in their company. A financial advisory firm founded in 2004, Regiments advises state-owned enterprises and municipalities - an established network into which the Guptas wanted entry. SOEs such as Transnet and Eskom spend millions of rand on advisory firms - which is often a tightly contested space. We report elsewhere how former director Eric Wood, while in the process of leaving Regiments to join Trillian, began machinations that resulted in Regiments being elbowed out of a lucrative supplier-development relationship at Transnet and Eskom, with global financial advisory firm McKinsey & Company. Through Wood, the Guptas intended to make inroads into Regiments and buy up half of the business through Elgasolve, a company linked to the family. Wood, referred to as "Mr Eric", was their inside man at Regiments...
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