Staff Reporter.
The former chief executive of Gupta-linked Trillian Management Consulting feared having to take responsibility for a R300 million Bank of Baroda overdraft facility for generations.
Bianca Goodson told the commission of inquiry into state capture on Thursday that investment management firm Integrated Capital Management director Clive Angel, who recruited her to be Trillian Management Consulting chief executive, wanted her to sign a Bank of Baroda overdraft facility the day before she resigned with immediate effect.
She said on March 18, 2016, Angel instructed her to sign some letters and send them back to another Integrated Capital Management director Mark Chipkin.
Integrated Capital Management was acting as an initial public offering assisting in the establishment of then newly-formed holding company Trillian Capital Partners and its subsidiaries, which included Trillian Management Consulting.
Angel, who approached Goodson in October 2015 to join Trillian Management Consulting, demanded she open an account with the Gupta-linked Bank of Baroda with the company’s chief operations officer and hand over its entire control to Chipkin.
Goodson said she found the instruction strange as Trillian Management Consulting had opened an Absa account in January 2016.
Angel, Goodson explained, told her Trillian Management Consulting needed Bank of Baroda to facilitate payments to eGateway, which had provided the company with Indian employees, getting 77% of whatever Trillian would earn in Eskom’s generation workstream and paid exorbitant fees of about R500 000 an hour.
The Trillian Management Consulting chief operations officer refused to sign and Goodson was summoned to Integrated Capital Management offices in Melrose Arch, Johannesburg, where she found a Bank of Baroda representative with all the documentation she was required to sign.
The Trillian Management Consulting chief operations officer refused to sign and Goodson was summoned to Integrated Capital Management offices in Melrose Arch, Johannesburg, where she found a Bank of Baroda representative with all the documentation she was required to sign.
She said she could hear a furious Angel screaming “who does she think she is” to Chipkin.
The Bank of Baroda account debacle led to Goodson resigning the following day.