Rainmaker Gets His Bonus… But The R4bn Mystery Deepens

Top salesman at Old Mutual and his line manager – who both quit after being deprived of their bonuses – settle, on eve of CCMA hearing.

- Jack Lundin

OLD MUTUAL HAS FINALLY AGREED to pay out a substantial chunk of the R1.1-million bonus that its rainmaker, super-sales-man Qinisekile Dhlamini, should have received for steering Anglo American Platinum’s R4-billion pension fund into the arms of Old Mutual’s SuperFund.

In nose240 we told how Dhlamini – known as “Q” to colleagues in the financial services industry – quit his R1,131,120-a-year job at Old Mutual Corporate after his superiors decided to carry over the substantial new Amplats business from 2018 to the following financial year – in the process, significantly reducing the bonus he might have earned for that year.

This was disastrous news for Dhlamini, who had already earned his maximum 2019 bonus (another R1.1m) after having secured R6bn in new business for SuperFund from Siyanda Resources and Coca-Cola, both of them scheduled to arrive in Old Mutual’s hands only in 2019. This meant that his R1.1m from the Amplats deal was gone for good.

The development was equally distressing to Dhlamini’s line boss at Old Mutual Corporate, Vivek Panday: the contrived Amplats carry-over to 2019 would cost him a bonus of R550,000. Both men resigned and immediately declared a dispute with their employer.

The dispute was first referred to arbitration by the CCMA and, if that failed, the next step would be a public hearing in the labour court. The arbitration process was to be scheduled to culminate in a meeting presided over by the CCMA commissioner on 7 October, just after nose240 was published online. Which may or may not have jolted Old Mutual into the – secret – pre-hearing settlement that they hurriedly concluded with their two ex-employees.