BLSA “damning findings” against Viceroy
Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) says it’s publishing a report that makes damning findings about the company Viceroy, which it describes a ‘short seller’.
Short selling is defined as the sale of a listed stock in the belief that it’s price will decline. This enables it to be bought back at a lower price to make a profit.
BLSA CEO Bonang Mohale says short selling is a new phenomenon in South Africa and BLSA therefore felt it was important to commission research.
He was commenting on a report commissioned from research group Intellidex that makes damning findings about Viceroy. BLSA commissioned the report from the research house Intellidex.
The report says Viceroy published negative reports about Steinhoff and Capitec in order to damage their share prices and sell their shares short.
Viceroy has denied some allegations in the Intellidex report, including that it plagiarised its Steinhoff report after it was produced by a different hedge fund six months earlier.
BLSA says the report finds that Viceroy has used the status it gained from its Steinhoff report – which benefited from the major demand for information about accounting failures in Steinhoff – in order to publish spurious and weak reports about other companies that had the effect of damaging their share prices.