In late March 2012, the Securities Exchange and Surveillance Commission (SESC), the investigative unit of the Japanese Financial Services Authority (FSA), confirmed that Nomura Securities Co., Ltd (NSC) – a subsidiary of Nomura Holdings, Inc. – had been involved in insider trading. On at least three occasions, before official announcements for share issues were made, employees at NSC leaked confidential information on securities offerings that the firm underwrote, with the aim of stimulating market demand for the shares.

Piet Malan, CEO of Metermatic, had to come to some decision about whether to attempt a management buy-out (MBO) of Metermatic from its parent, SAFREN. Malan’s management team, particularly the sales manager, were very keen to take management control of Metermatic, but Malan was more cautious. He was worried about the risk of the high levels of debt that Metermatic would have to sustain and the fact that Equis, the private equity company, wanted him and the management team to put up some of the equity. Yet this was a rare opportunity that might not present itself again.

It was approaching the middle of the 2006/07 financial year. The Johannesburg Hospital finance director, Gumani Matodzi, had just completed another weekly run of the hospital’s top 20 goods and services expenses. As always, National Health Laboratory Services (NHLS) expenses were at the top of the list and yet again they were over budget. The demands of the Public Finance Management Act (no 1 of 1999) (PFMA) made it important to ensure that the hospital did its best to stay within its budget, and Matodzi wondered how he could better manage NHLS expenditure.

No. Pages: 17 

On 15 September 2008, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed for bankruptcy protection at the United States Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, New York. The news of Lehman’s bankruptcy filing sent shockwaves through the United States (US) financial markets, the impact of which was later felt across the world, contributing to the global financial crisis in the same year. As a major American financial institution, Lehman held US$639 billion in assets at the time of its demise, making its bankruptcy filing the largest in the history of the US.

As Geoffrey Qhena, chief executive officer (CEO) of the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), sat in his office at the organisation’s headquarters in Johannesburg, reviewing details of the recently published annual report in preparation for a meeting with the board, he reflected on the state of the organisation he had led since 2005.

In August 2014, seven years after Ellerine Holdings Limited (EHL) had been purchased by African Bank Investments Limited (ABIL), the board of EHL announced that EHL and Ellerine Furnishers (Pty) Ltd (EF) had applied for voluntary business rescue. The new EHL chief executive officer, Mano Moodley, and his board wondered if their decision to partner with ABIL had been too hasty. If they had chosen an alternative partner, would the outcome have been different?

At the end of the third quarter of 2007, Leon Kirkinis, chief executive officer (CEO) of African Bank Investments Limited (ABIL), unexpectedly arrived at the head office of Ellerine Holdings Limited (EHL), a South African furniture retail group, with a proposal to purchase EHL. For some time, EHL, which derived a substantial portion of its profit from loans provided to customers wishing to buy furniture, had been looking to enter into a deal with a bank as a means of growing its business. Up until the ABIL offer, EHL had been seriously considering a joint venture with Capitec Bank.

In May 2009, news of Deutsche Bank’s spying operations became public. Over a period of six years, the bank’s corporate security department had conducted secret surveillance of certain employees, board members and shareholders. Deutsche Bank had hoped to use the knowledge gained to its advantage in court or in the media. Thus, the bank faced the possibility of legal action instituted by the people it had spied on. Furthermore, news of the spying operations had the potential to damage Deutsche Bank’s reputation as a trustworthy institution.

No of Pages: 14

In late June 2012, the results of a long-term investigation by the United Kingdom’s (UK) financial watchdog, Financial Services Authorities (FSA), revealed that derivatives traders and bankers at Barclays bank had been colluding to influence submissions that influenced the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) and the European Interbank Offered Rate (EURIBOR).

In September 2011, news of Bank Saderat Iran’s involvement in an embezzlement operation became public. Amir Mansoor Khosravi, an Iranian businessman, had used fraudulent documents from Bank Saderat to obtain bank loans that amounted to US$2.6 billion.  At the time, the fraud was the biggest in the history of Iranian banking and those implicated faced harsh penalties, including death sentences.  As Iran’s public prosecutor investigated the case, senior officials at Bank Saderat denied having any knowledge of the fraudulent operation.

No of Pages: 9