I’m not sure if this is allowed but here is something about the Capitec issues that came out today.
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On Tuesday morning, a financial research group called Viceroy released a report looking into the business model and practices of South African lender Capitec. It is damning in the extreme, accusing Capitec of “predatory finance” and massively overstating its performance and value. Capitec will collapse, says Viceroy, unless it is placed under curatorship by the authorities. Here’s what you need to know so far. By REBECCA DAVIS
@crzwaco in the simplest of terms it means that although Capitec is solvent (Assets exceed Liabilities) that some of it’s business practices around providing credit (unsecured lending) can be seen as questionable and predatory.
Here’s some summaries
Capitec is either fabricating new loans and collections, or re-financing ~ZAR 2.5bn – 3bn (US$200m-$240m) in principal per year by issuing new loans to defaulting clients.
That could be problematic if true, it’s completely legal though but can be seen as unethical
Furthermore
Legal documents obtained by Viceroy show Capitec advising and approving loans to delinquent customers in order to repay existing loans. These documents also show Capitec engaging in reckless lending practices as defined by South Africa’s National Credit Act. As a consequence of re-financing delinquent loans, Viceroy believes Capitec’s loan book is massively overstated. Viceroy’s analysis against competitors suggests an impairment/write-off impact of ZAR 11bn will more accurately represent the delinquencies and risk in Capitec’s portfolio. Legal experts that we have spoken to believe that the outcome of an upcoming reckless and predatory lending test case in March 2018 will be used to trigger a multi-party litigation refund (class action). We believe that, at a minimum, Capitec will be required to refund predatory origination fees primarily related to multi-loan facilities; an estimated ZAR 12.7bn. Viceroy’s investigations suggest that Capitec’s prohibited and discontinued multi-loan facility lives on, rebranded as a “Credit Facility”. Former Capitec employees have corroborated this. Despite its perception as an affordable lender, Capitec’s implied interest rates are significantly true of the maximum allowable rates in South Africa.South Africa’s microfinancing sector has been the graveyard of numerous Capitec competitors who chased the same meteoric growth Capitec displays, largely due to low acceptance and mass delinquencies. We see no operational difference between Capitec and its ill-fated predecessors, including African Bank. Former employees consider the business to still be an outright loan-shark operation, where fees are key. Some former employees believe they were fired for not deceiving borrowers and failing to meet rescheduling targets on impaired/defaulting loans. Jean Pierre Verster, chairman of Capitec’s audit committee, is/was indirectly short Capitec through Steinhoff. We believe this is an oversight, and understand Verster to be an excellent analyst on the short side. We encourage Verster to raise the concerns within this report to company auditors and recognize Capitec’s resemblance to his previous African Bank short. Given what we believe is a massive overstatement of financial assets and income, together with opaque reporting of loan cash flow and reckless lending practices, we believe Capitec is simply uninvestable and accordingly have not assigned a target price.
The whole thing is going to be very interesting to follow. On the one hand if it’s true that Capitec is involved in preditory finance then it raises the question if Capitec will follow the path of African bank when it ran out of steam with its re-financing of loans to misrepresent the credit history of its clients.
However on the other side of the coin, Viceroy might also be in for a beating also. Whilst there is nothing wrong with releasing a report on your research, shareholders of Capitec could claim for losses against Viceroy because without the report then the share price wouldn’t have fallen.
Obviously this whole thing needs to be investigated fully by the reserve bank and credit regulator and i’m hoping that Capitec gets cleared and that it’s shareholders go after Viceroy for everything they have because I thinks its just as morally bankrupt to release a report like this and then profiting of the short position in the scrambling that follows.