A joint venture with US-sanctioned Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg appears to have become the ANC’s dominant source of funds. | amaBhungane
The investment may explain the ANC’s unwillingness to criticise Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
This means dividends, likely totalling hundreds of millions of rands in 2021 and beyond, will be unencumbered and can flow freely to the ANC’s largest declared funder. NAMI owns 49% of UMK, an arrangement that seemingly allows UMK to avoid American sanctions targeting Vekselberg. The spectacular 2020 dividends were used to fund the buyout of another MST shareholder, multinational mining group South32’s subsidiary Samancor Manganese. This transaction, which was worth R1.37 billion, was completed in two-parts following the designation of Vekselberg.
What has escaped notice is the evidently enormous importance of UMK in the scheme of things. The scale of dividends revealed in the financial statements of NAMI indicate that the ANC is unlikely to have any comparable dependable source of cash. UMK has however seemingly contributed more than this without falling foul of the donation limit by, for instance, splitting funds up through lots of small entities.
"We have always been transparent regarding our donations which are board decisions, as are the distribution of dividends. Once a dividend is declared the shareholders can disseminate as they see fit."The party has other large benefactors including Batho Batho, a trust with ANC roots, which owns 46% of Thebe Investments, which in turn has minority stakes in Shell’s downstream operations in South Africa as well as Seriti, a major coal supplier to Eskom.
"Mr Vekselberg is the only shareholder defined as a Specially Designated National under current US, EU and UK sanctions. He does not own any direct interest in UMK and is an economic beneficiary of a trust that owns less than 25% of UMK. His personal sanctions therefore do not affect UMK’s operations. Except for Mr Vekselberg, none of the other beneficial owners of MST and NAMI have been defined as SDNs or are subject to sanctions by the US, EU, or UK.
Cyprus documents show that a reconfiguration of NAMI’s shareholding actually only came about in February 2020. It resulted in the Cyprus company being 48.8% owned by Vekselberg – precisely what is necessary to avoid sanctions at that level.
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