The Group wants to expose the unethical business conduct within the company in an effort to return the company to its growth trajectory and preserve shareholder value.
The members of SAVE EOH are choosing to remain anonymous for now due to the fear of further targeted harassment and other security issues.
THREE YEARS
OF POOR PERFORMANCE
i.
When van Coller was appointed in 2018, EOH was the leading IT business in Africa, servicing thousands of organisations in both the private and public sector, employing 11,500 staff and was instrumental in creating 25,000 IT jobs for young South Africans through its EOH Youth Job Creation Initiative. EOH’s annual revenue prior to van Coller’s arrival was more than R16,4-billion.
In just three years under van Coller, revenue has more than halved to R6,8 billion; employment has been reduced by 6500; EOH has lost R6-billion in market cap; it has sold off its most valuable subsidiaries and the share price lost more than 80% of its value (from R40 to around R7).
ii.
iii.
The EOH Job Creation Initiative was stopped, which since 2012 provided some 25000 new jobs in the IT industry for school leavers. EOH itself took in some 700 young South Africans every year as trainees and the as many as 85% become permanent employees.
Van Coller has caused harm to many small black businesses working with EOH by treating all dealings with enterprise development (ED) partners as “suspected” transactions.
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v.
The B-BBEE partner, Lebashe, that came on board in 2018 and invested R750-million has lost approximately R650-million.
Save EOH appointed independent audit and accounting services firm, P. Koski Accountants, to analyse the financials reported related to some disposals. The level of deceit, misleading information, and gross negligence by van Coller is evident in this document. Some of the key findings were the selling of the most valuable core assets (owned software) for a fraction of their value and stating that they are non-core. The selling of “crown jewels” under a “partnership” where there was none and the major adverse financial impact on the business. The abandoning of EOH strategy and business model.
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vii.
Contrary to the auditor’s view and various IFRS rules, van Coller restated the financial statements of the periods prior to his arrival, writing off billions including major tangible assets with very little attempt to recover them, resulting in a qualified audit. The auditors were fired as a result. The then consultants who assisted on the restatements, PWC, were appointed as Auditors instead – a clear conflict of interest.
Subsequently, van Coller has in 2021 again restated the results that he published in 2020. This means that the past four years have been restated – with three of those year being under his watch – rendering the analysing of EOH financial results and performance impossible.
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ix.
During van Coller’s time he disposed of some 60 businesses indiscriminately including all the most valuable, profitable and cash generative “crown jewels” of the business for a small fraction of their value. Some businesses were simply given away to management. This caused some R6-billion loss to EOH. In most of the disposals, the buyers of the businesses sold included the then management of the businesses. This indicates the true value of the disposals. The reasons for the disposals according to van Coller, is that these businesses were “non-core”, but this could not be further from the truth.
One of EOH’s greatest assets, CCS, a South African developed and owned construction software that ranks among the top 10 in the world with customers in 50 countries, was sold by van Coller to a German company for 15% of its real value, resulting in a loss of income and foreign currency for South Africa, a loss of many software developer jobs in South Africa and a loss of promising future growth for employment in South Africa. An Australian business similar to CCS, called Aconex, which was not yet profitable was acquired by Oracle for $1,2 billion (R18-billion), van Coller knew about the value of CCS yet under sold it for R586-million.
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xi.
The share price has dramatically declined, from around R40 a share when van Coller arrived in 2018 to around R7 today. This decline reflects a drop in the share price of over 80%.
About R245-million was paid to the legal firm ENS Africa on an independent investigation, purported to investigate corrupt activity. On van Coller’s instruction, ENS also endlessly litigated against some staff members “suspected of wrong-doing” to the financial prejudice of EOH. This clearly indicates that ENS was not an independent party. ENS was subsequently fired and Werksmans hired instead when ENS could not deliver prosecutions to van Coller.
xii.
xiii.
R190-million was spent on consultants, some of whom are close associates of van Coller, but it is unclear what function these consultants have served.
Several senior staff who had led the business over more than a decade were let go. In doing so he left the business with no institutional corporate memory, operational experience and understanding of the EOH business.
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xv.
Van Coller hired new expensive management primarily from the banking sector who had little IT experience and no understanding of how commercial IT businesses operate. This move has caused tremendous damage to all aspects of the business.
Van Coller abandoned the very strategy he was hired for, and which was designed to continue the company’s twenty years impressive year on year growth. Van Coller was appointed as CEO of EOH Holdings which was to serve as an investment holdings company. His appointment was part of a broader strategy which was already in place splitting EOH into two distinct and independent businesses. Each with its own CEO (Zunaid Mayet and Rob Godlonton), board, unique brand and identity and business model.
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xvii.
After more than 1700 media articles, mostly negative articles quoting van Coller, over the last three years, EOH is considered a corrupt organisation.
SaveEOH
The SAVE EOH group’s mission is to prevent the further demise of EOH Holding Limited under its CEO Stephen van Coller and the protection of the rights and continued employment of the remaining 5500 employees at the company.