Adapt IT shares plunge on damaging claims against CEO
Adapt IT CEO Sbu Shabalala
Shares in Adapt IT plunged more than 10% on Monday after claims were published at the weekend that CEO Sbu Shabalala hired armed thugs to beat up the partner of his estranged wife, Neo.
The share price fell as much as 11.3% to R6.28 soon after markets opened in Johannesburg. At the time of writing, they were off 9.8% at R6.39 apiece, 11c below the all-cash offer to buy the company from Canada’s Volaris Group.
For weeks, the counter has been trading above the Volaris offer price as investors bet that either Volaris or Adapt IT’s other suitor, Huge Group, which is pursuing an all-share deal, will offer more.
Technology firm Adapt IT said its long-serving CEO Sbu Shabalala will take a leave of absence for three months to “attend to personal matters”. This comes in the wake of media reports at the weekend that he allegedly hired thugs to beat up the partner of his estranged wife.
Adapt IT didn’t specify the “personal matters” that Shabalala had to tend to when the company made his temporary departure known on Monday 10 May in a JSE stock news announcement.
However, the
Sunday Times reported at the weekend that Shabalala allegedly hired armed thugs to threaten the partner of his estranged wife, Neo Shabalala. Neo’s partner, according to the newspaper, is suspended eThekwini city manager, Sipho Nzuza, who is in critical condition at a Durban hospital.
Adapt IT CEO Sbu Shabalala to take leave of absence
Adapt IT CEO Sbu Shabalala
Adapt IT said on Monday that its long-serving CEO, Sbu Shabalala, will take a leave of absence for three months to “attend to personal matters”.
Chief commercial officer Tiffany Dunsdon, who is also a long-serving executive director of the JSE-listed software services group, will take over as CEO on an interim basis. Dunsdon lives in Perth, Australia.
The developments come after serious allegations emerged at the weekend in which Shabalala is accused of hiring armed thugs to threaten his estranged wife Neo’s partner, suspended eThekwini city manger Sipho Nzuza.
Adapt IT CEO Sbu Shabalala has been accused of allegedly sending a group of heavily armed men to the home of his estranged wife, Neo. Her partner, an eThekwini city manager, is currently in hospital in critical condition following an attack in which Neo claims “five men armed with automatic rifles, handguns, and batons entered her home”. Sipho Nzuza, Neo’s partner, has suffered serious injury to his spleen and has had to have part of his kidney removed. According to MyBroadband, Shabalala’s estranged wife was allegedly told that she had been “granted a reprieve” from physical assault, on the basis she sign an agreement in their ongoing legal dispute. The former couple are currently embroiled in a legal altercation over money. MyBroadband reports that “Neo is claiming part of Sbu’s assets which she says is over R133m.” BizNews approached Adapt IT and Sbu Shabalala’s representatives to obtain their side of the story. Shabalala was not available for comment.
Adapt IT CEO granted leave of absence to attend to personal matters
By Dieketseng Maleke
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ADAPT ITâS chief executive, Sbu Shabalala, has been granted a leave of absence, at his request, the company announced on Monday.
The JSE-listed company said in a statement its board had granted the chief executive three monthsâ leave effective on May 10 to attend to personal matters.
The company appointed Tiffany Dunsdon as the interim chief executive for the next three months.
âDunsdon has served as the executive director and chief commercial officer of Adapt IT,â it said.
The company also said Tony Vicente has been appointed an executive director.