Afristrat denies “Ponzi pump and dump” allegations

Afristrat Investment Holdings released a SENS announcement on Tuesday that advised shareholders of “misleading information that has been circulated”.

This information relates to a link between Afristrat and the board, the information distributed, and persons behind the email address “[email protected]” and the website address “https://afristrattradeltd.com” and certain WhatsApp profile(s).

The email address relates to a website, http://www.afristratpumpanddump.co.za/index.html, which the website said was created “to provide useful, interesting information to oblivious trusting investors, the naive, unenlightened, the inexperienced JSE traders”.

The website alleges that Afristrat steals investors’ money and refers to the company as “a turnaround specialist turning pensioners into cargaurds and hobo’s [sic]”. It claims Afristrat is a “Ponzi pump and dump scheme”.

The website says AfriStrat is a “complex scheme of entwining both a Ponzi scheme and a Pump and Dump Scheme” and, therefore, “the need is of Paramount importance to find educated, intelligent roll players, Roll Players [sic] without a conscience” to hold the company to account.

The website contains a laundry list of charges against Afristrat, ranging from allegations of malfeasance, fraud and reckless trading.

Afristrat said it “wishes to assure shareholders that neither the Company nor the board is associated or linked to any of these persons, the platforms and/or the information distributed through these platforms and that all these platforms are peddling falsehoods under the name of the Company and the board”.

Afristrat also distanced itself from the website https://afristrattradeltd.com/, which leads to the website for an organisation called AFRISTRATTRADELTD.

According to this website, AFRISTRATTRADELTD is a “solution for creating an investment management platform”. It is “suited for hedge or mutual fund managers and also Forex, stocks, bonds and cryptocurrency traders who are looking at runing [sic] pool trading system”. 

Afristrat Investment Holdings is a JSE-listed investment company. It is a small-cap company with a market cap of R76.85 million and a share price of R0.12.

Afristrat troubles

On 5 August 2022, the JSE suspended trading in Afristrat after it failed to submit its annual report within the four-month period following its year-end as stipulated in the listings requirements.

“Afristrat’s listing on the JSE trading system had been annotated with a ‘RE’ to indicate its failure to submit its annual report timeously,” the JSE said.

The listing of Afristrat Investment Holdings’ securities was under threat of suspension and possible removal.

Afristrat told shareholders that the company is pursuing legal action against “the persons behind these platforms” and assured them that “further announcements in this regard will be published in due course, should it be necessary”.

Last year, a group of Afristrat investors launched a high court bid to provisionally liquidate the JSE-listed company.

Moneyweb reported that the application was brought by preference shareholder Jienie-Michelle Dreyer, who has also launched a civil case to recover her investment in Afristrat.

“Dreyer said she is supported in the provisional liquidation application by 57 shareholders and holders of securities of Afristrat to the value of about R100.3 million,” Moneyweb said.

Earlier this year, Afristrat CEO George Manyere revealed that they had an exposure of R1.2 billion to the liquidated MyBucks Group.

“The R1.2 billion amounts to about 70% of the investable funds of Afristrat,” Moneyweb said.