Old Mutual is ready to discredit axed CEO Peter Moyo’s court papers to defend its board and chair Trevor Manuel. The insurer, which is due to file papers opposing former CEO Moyo’s bid to be reinstated, said it was looking forward to challenging him in court and has already pre-empted its victory.
“Old Mutual looks forward to delivering a full response to Mr Moyo’s allegations in court on July 16 and is confident in the outcome,” the insurer said in a statement on Friday.
Moyo filed his papers at the Johannesburg High Court on June 28, requesting an urgent application to be temporarily reinstated and to interdict the company from filling the CEO position.
The insurer fired Moyo in June after a brief suspension, saying his investment company NMT Capital failed to pay preference dividends due to Old Mutual while paying out ordinary dividends even though it still owed the insurer preference share capital invested decades ago.
The public spat between Old Mutual and Moyo has escalated to a point that big companies usually avoid. For instance, when Alexander Forbes fired its former CEO, Andrew Darfoor, in 2018, it kept all the details under wraps, choosing to give only one answer throughout: that its board had lost confidence in Darfoor.
Old Mutual said while it would not ordinarily respond publicly to allegations, it was concerned that Moyo’s lawyers had employed a deliberate strategy of spreading false information and unwarranted allegations against Manuel.
The head of research at Benguela Global Fund Managers, Karl Gevers, said the public mudslinging did not bode well for either Moyo or Old Mutual. “Peter Moyo is fighting for his reputation and the lucrative position he had as CEO. Old Mutual needs to do what’s in the best interests of its stakeholders. This one has become personal and it is in public,” he said.
For Moyo the stakes appear highest. If Old Mutual does not reinstate him, he may find it difficult to land an executive position in a public company the size of Old Mutual or Vodacom, where he’s worked in the past. “My professional integrity and reputation has taken a serious knock due to the highly publicised issues,” Moyo said in his affidavit last week.
Labour lawyer Andrew Levy said people who leave their employment under a cloud like Moyo did usually face problems. “It’s not a favourable impression on prospective employers,” said Levy.
Gevers said given how far the two parties have gone with public counterclaims, the court was definitely the best place to get a fair result.
While the fight between Old Mutual and Moyo escalated over the past few weeks, the insurer’s share price has only lost 2% since Moyo’s suspension on May 23. Gevers said he was surprised by this but believed the market did not react because shareholders did not think the spat was affecting Old Mutual’s underlying businesses.
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