Guptas Inflated Oakbay Price Through Trading by Singapore Firm.

The Gupta family inflated the share price of a company it controlled on its Johannesburg Stock Exchange debut by lending money to a Singapore firm to be used to trade the equities. 

That came ahead of plans to raise funds for a uranium mine. The Guptas, who are embroiled in a corruption scandal linked to South African President Jacob Zuma, agreed to loan $1 million from bank accounts in Dubai to Unlimited Electronics & Computers in Singapore in November 2014. 

That same month, UEC transferred $928,146 to the Guptas’ Oakbay Resources and Energy Ltd. and the two companies had a contract entitling UEC to 18.5 million Oakbay shares at 10 rand a share, according to a Nov. 20 communication that was one of a trove of emails seen by Bloomberg. 

The 2.31 percent stake in Oakbay was worth about 185 million rand ($13 million). Oakbay employee Ronica Ragavan told UEC director Kamran Gani by email on Nov. 27, 2014, a day before Oakbay listed, to instruct his brokers to sell 10,000 shares for 10.05 rand each and another 10,000 shares for 10.08 rand before Dec. 5. 

By Renee Bonorchis. 

Full story at Bloomberg.

Photo Source: Photographer: Nadine Hutton/Bloomberg