Sygnia CEO Magda Wierzycka kisses South Africa goodbye

Sygnia CEO Magda Wierzycka lives in London and explained that making South Africa her home again is off the table because of safety concerns.

Wierzycka is one of South Africa’s best-known chief executives because of her vociferous opposition to state capture and corruption.

She was a key player in the Gupta Leaks, in which a large number of emails exposing state capture were leaked to the media.

During this period, she feared for her and her family’s safety and moved to London as a precautionary measure.

She later returned to South Africa. However, consistent monitoring and threats, including tapping her phone, led Wierzycka to move to London permanently.

Wierzycka, who helped found Sygnia in 2006, stepped down as co-CEO on 31 May 2021, handing the reigns to David Hufton.

The company’s lacklustre performance after her departure saw Wierzycka return as Sygnia CEO in May 2023. However, she did not make South Africa her home.

Instead, she moves between her London home and office in Mayfair, her South African home, and Sygnia’s head office in Cape Town.

However, recent tax changes in the United Kingdom have forced her to reconsider her decision to call London home.

Her current shortlist of countries she may move to and call home are Greece, Italy, and Switzerland.

“I really don’t want to leave the UK. I was in dreamland until my tax advisors said we had to have a plan. Let’s put forward alternatives,” she told City AM.

She told the City AM newspaper that moving back to South Africa is not an option because of safety concerns.

This is even though her husband still has to live in South Africa because of the country’s foreign exchange controls.

She explained that something simple, like walking in the streets, was unsafe, and she had to have “cumbersome security detail follow her around”.

In May 2023, a year before the general elections, she told people attending a Brenthurst Wealth webinar that the prospects of a DA and ANC coalition were incredibly slim.

“I don’t want to say I’m negative about South Africa, but I am negative about it,” Wierzycka said.

“I don’t want to leave this country; I love this country. But I am out of ideas in terms of what we need to do to fix what we are facing right now.”

“When I look at the mess which has been created, I cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel.”