Kebble’s murder raises more questions than answers

It’s pretty tough to shock South Africa’s top gold-mining executives. These people are old-school types hardened after many years spent directing tens of thousands of low-wage workers and maneouvering nimbly through Africa’s complex and violent political order.

But shocked they were at the Denver Gold Forum in late September as news trickled in that one of their own, the disgraced Brett Kebble, had been murdered as he drove through a plush northern suburb of Johannesburg on the night of Sept. 27.

Kebble was travelling alone from his home in Inanda to the house of his partner Sello Rasethaba, to have dinner with senior members of the African National Congress’s Youth League.

Just after 9 p.m., as he steered his silver S-class Mercedes-Benz on Atholl-Oaklands Rd. through Melrose, at least five shots were fired into Kebble’s upper body, from behind, with the shooter using a 9 mm handgun.

The blood-spattered, bullet-pierced car was found smashed into the railing of a bridge over the M1 freeway connecting Joburg to Pretoria.Police and other eyewitness accounts said there had been no attempt at a robbery, and nothing was taken from the car.

Roger Kebble, Brett’s well-known mining-executive father, was informed in Paris about the killing, and returned home.

Family spokesman David Barrit said Kebble’s life had been threatened in the past, and that his personal security had been beefed up until about a year ago, when the threats had seemingly passed. This year, Kebble usually had a driver by day, but drove himself at night.

“Brett was larger than life and when people are like that they always have enemies,” said Barrit.

The South African Chamber of Mines reacted by saying it was “deeply saddened and outraged by the senseless act of violence.” Mzolisi Diliza, the chamber’s chief executive, noted that Kebble was a member of its executive council, and said “his creative and influential presence in both the mining and wider business communities will be missed. He was an individual demonstrably committed to democracy in our country and was a meaningful contributor to South Africa’s transformation imperative.”

The ANC said it was “shocked and saddened” by the “sudden and tragic loss” of Kebble, while its Youth League said Kebble was an “example that South Africa’s big business should emulate.”

South Africa’s dominant National Union of Mineworkers and the Solidarity Trade Union also expressed their sadness and condolences to the Kebble family.

Kebble’s funeral attracted more than 1,000 people to St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town.

Brett Kebble was born in Springs, South Africa, in 1964. He obtained a law degree from the University of Cape Town in 1986, while working nearby at Mallinicks legal practice.

However, in 1991, he joined his father to buy a controlling stake in Rand Leases Gold Mining for 5 million rand.

A year later, Kebble became a partner at Mallinicks and set up shop as a consultant to the mining industry.

In 1994, Kebble engineered a successful takeover of Rangold & Exploration and became an executive director. From this position, he succeeded in getting Randgold Resources listed on the London Stock Exchange.

A couple of years later, Kebble folded his family’s one-third stake in R&E into Consolidated Mining, which served as a base to fund the purchase of a controlling stake in the venerable JCI. In turn, Kebble used JCI as a vehicle for a flurry of Black Economic Empowerment deals.

In 1998, Kebble managed to pull off the biggest deal of his life, with the disposal by Western Areas of a half stake in the South Deep mine to Canada’s Placer Dome for US$235 million. It was one of the largest deals in South African mining history.

Kebble then merged JCI with Consolidated African Mines in 2002, and listed JCI on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

During Kebble’s tenure at R&E, Harmony Gold Mining and DRDGold were spun off to create some of South Africa’s largest gold-mining companies.

In a crime-ravaged country, where fatal car-jackings are commonplace, this murder appears to virtually all observers to be a premeditated “hit.” The motive is less clear, as Kebble had racked up as many enemies in the nation’s political scene as he had in its mining sector.

Exactly four weeks before his murder, Kebble had been forced to resign in disgrace as chief executive of three interlinked South African mining companies: R&E, JCI and Western Areas. Father Roger was also forced out as non-executive chairman of R&E and JCI, and he resigned as a director of Western Areas.

Simply put, Kebble was murdered while he was at the centre of a multi-million dollar share scandal: According to a regulatory filing by Randgold Resources with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on June 30, the 31% stake in Randgold Resources that R&E claimed to own really amounted to no more than a 6.7% interest.

These “missing” shares, currently worth about US$225 million, appear to have been sold under Kebble’s direction — without board or shareholder approval — mostly around the third quarter of 2004. The money from the sales has yet to be accounted for.

R&E and JCI were suspended from the JSE in early August and R&E was delisted from the Nasdaq on Sept. 21 because the companies had failed to publish their audited financial statement for the year ended Dec. 31, 2004.

Indeed, there were no signs whatsoever from Kebble that the results would ever be tabled publicly, and R&E’s new management promptly withdrew R&E’s unaudited 2004 results released in April.

Subsequent to Kebble’s departure, JCI got a cash infusion from Investec and Western Areas said it would go ahead with a rights issue to raise funds for its share of the South Deep development, which has been delayed for almost two years (a delay Kebble had blamed on Placer Dome).

After he was booted out of the three companies, Kebble released a statement which read: “After a period of deep introspection, and notwithstanding the rough and ready ethos that is characteristic of our industry, I believe that some of the bruising corporate and personal battles that have taken place on my watch, while unavoidable, might have been handled in a less confrontational way. I have therefore attempted in recent months to mend some fences.”

In his political life, Kebble’s influence stretched deep into South Africa’s machinery of power. He was a prominent member of the ANC, and had bankrolled the party’s activities in both in the Western Cape and countrywide. In making substantial donations to the ANC, Kebble said he was supporting South Africa’s fledgling democracy.

There are also reports that he not only politically propped up, but financially supported former Deputy President Jacob Zuma, who was axed by President Thabo Mbeki in mid-June.

Earlier, Zuma’s financial advisor had been convicted of corruption, and Zuma himself was charged shortly afterwards, following raids on his houses by the feared Scorpions — the South African police’s Directorate of Special Investigations.

Zuma is due to appear in court Oct. 11, and he continues to be strongly supported by the ANC’s Youth League.

The deep schism between supporters of Mbeki and those of Zuma is the greatest crisis facing the ANC since it assumed power in 1994.

Kebble, a dapper dresser with a trademark moptop hairdo, was also an enthusiastic patron of the arts in South Africa, having amassed a large personal collection and sponsoring the Brett Kebble Art Awards, given to South African artists. The awards will go on as planned in 2006, their third year.

“Brett Kebble had a great love for art and was the most generous art patron South Africa has known,” said Clive van den Berg, curator of the awards. “He made a substantial difference to livelihoods of many artists and ensured that artists, even from the most remote areas, benefited from his patronage.”

Among his many philanthropic undertakings was the Siphosethu Feeding Scheme which, through his Brett Kebble Charitable Foundation, he established to feed 1,500 pre-school children on a daily basis in Cape Town’s Masipumelele and Ocean View townships. He
also donated funds to a project run by Solidarity to feed unemployed mineworkers and their families near Stilfontein.

Johannesburg’s influential Daily Star newspaper summed it up nicely, writing that, “for some Kebble was a crook whose empire had collapsed; for others he was a creative and quick-thinking businessman who dared to make deals that others shied away from.”

We hope the strong spotlight now focused on Brett Kebble will turn up more surprises about the life and work of this complex, dynamic and scandalous man. At the same time, we know there are forces in South Africa that benefit greatly from silence, and are willing to take dire steps to enforce it.

Kebble is survived by his wife Ingrid, two daughters and two sons. He was 41.