We agreed we needed to buy back M&G Online; 24.com confirmed it would sell the site. There was no other option.
In the meantime, we started to focus on building a new M&G Online – something I had wanted to do ever since the relaunch of the database-driven site back in 2002. My office became wallpapered with printouts of some of the world’s best websites, such as those of the Guardian, the New York Times, the Washington Post, El País and Le Monde. We held weekly meetings to discuss the site-design mock-ups that Vincent would rapidly churn out. It was a truly exciting creative process, and we loved every minute of it. Once again we felt like we were making history.
But the sale talks were not going particularly well. The 24.com-appointed evaluator had come up with a suggested sale price that was roughly 40 times lower than what had been expected by both sides. Of course, we were happy with the evaluation, although surprised at how low the price had turned out to be. On the other hand, 24.com were unhappy with the price that their own evaluator had come up with, arguing that he was valuing the site like a traditional business, not a fast-growing digital concern. It felt like the dot.com boom and crash all over again: silly valuations based on silly business metrics.
A meeting to discuss the price in 2008, between the CEOs of the M&G and 24.com as well as various other players, took place in the M&G’s boardroom in Rosebank. That day I was ill, unable to get out of bed. I’m a person who hates being left out, so I was unhappy to have missed the critical meeting … at least, so I thought.
I called Hoosain from my bed that afternoon to find out how things had gone. He answered: ‘Terrible. Trevor walked out of the meeting. He felt they were arrogant.’ In many ways I was not surprised; Trevor’s reaction accurately summed up the state of relations between the companies for the previous ten years. I could not blame either Trevor or 24.com. It was a difficult situation – a historical circumstance not of our making, but one that we were trying to fix.
We were a small, passionate media company with great print and online assets. We felt we had built M&G Online into one of the country’s top websites, despite the many obstacles. But every move we made, every negotiation, was overshadowed by the shareholding situation and a shareholder’s agreement that added layers of complexity to what should have been the simplest of decisions. It was a miracle that we often managed to navigate our way around the mess and build such a strong online business.
Throughout this time I had been feeling worn out. My days often seemed to be filled with more downs than ups. The shareholding situation was taking its toll on me. My first child, Isabel, had just been born, and a second was on its way. My wife and I had become tired of living in Johannesburg and wanted a change.
On top of that, I found my name bizarrely attached to the ‘hoax email spy’ saga in 2006, which was linked to the Thabo Mbeki–Jacob Zuma succession struggle and Zuma’s impending corruption trial. A massive tranche of so-called emails and online chats were released to journalists in an attempt to show that there was a conspiracy against Deputy President Zuma becoming president, involving politicians, journalists and other prominent people. There were bogus instant messenger transcripts (in which I managed to spell my own name incorrectly) of me and former DA leader Tony Leon having a chat, reportedly coordinating and plotting against Zuma. Mail & Guardian founder and well-known journalism lecturer Anton Harber was also drawn into the discredited scandal, as were other prominent members of society.
I almost choked on my croissant one Sunday morning when I saw my name splashed on the front page of the country’s biggest newspaper, the Sunday Times.8 My mother called me a little later that day.
‘Um, darling – we just read about you in the newspaper … something about you, the president, Jacob Zuma and spying?’
‘Yes, Mom, I know – it’s crap.’
According to the Sunday Times reports, my home phone had also been bugged at some point by the National Intelligence Agency (NIA). Others that had been targeted for surveillance included prominent businessmen and politicians such as Cyril Ramaphosa, Smuts Ngonyama, Bulelani Ngcuka, Leonard McCarthy, Frank Chikane and Gerrie Nel. The Sunday Times reported at the time that this was the NIA’s ‘Project Avani’, which ‘sought to identify any threat posed by the ANC presidential succession debate and Jacob Zuma’s impending corruption trial’.
Whichever spy was listening in to my calls, he or she must have been very bored by the frequent and mundane conversations between me, my wife and my extended family. But it didn’t take long for Sam Sole, one of the M&G’s top investigative journalists, to pop into my office looking for my comment on the whole fiasco. I realised that I had now become a story for the publication I worked for.
It was all so laughable. I figured out that the author of the bogus emails must have been lazy and simply gotten my name from the contact page of the Mail & Guardian website. Later I received an official letter of apology from minister of intelligence Ronny Kasrils.
Ironically enough, in the midst of this ‘scandal’ and the ongoing shareholder dealings, News24 had approached me on a few occasions to gauge my interest in working for them. There had been five or so such approaches, the last of which I rejected when I met Hanly for coffee in London while on a business trip to the Guardian newspaper. But there was now another job offer from News24 on the table, and I began to consider it seriously.
Meanwhile, negotiations continued between Hoosain, Trevor and 24.com. I stayed out of these as I needed to focus my energies on launching the new site and CMS – the backbone of any major online publishing operation. And then Vincent came to tell me that major telco provider Vodacom had made him a ‘big’ offer. They were doing exciting tech in the mobile-social space, building a location-based, mobile-only social network called The Grid.
I wasn’t happy with Vincent’s news, especially since our work on the new M&G site was at a critical stage. I told him it was far too early for him to leave and that the timing was inappropriate given the launch. But I knew I couldn’t be unreasonable about this situation. So, hoping it would go nowhere, I added that he should at least find out what the offer entailed.
Meanwhile the work on the site gathered more and more steam, and the developers and Vincent put in more and more hours preparing for the launch. And then Vincent dropped the bombshell that he wanted to take up the Vodacom offer. The money was good and the job involved a mobile social network – the newest and most exciting sphere of the web. I tried my best to convince him otherwise, but Vincent’s mind was made up.
Of course I was also entertaining an offer, but I could tell this to no one – least of all Vincent. Unlike Vincent, I had been at the M&G for over seven years and felt I had served my time. I didn’t agree with employees hopping around for salary increases or the next shiny thing. I was quite old-fashioned and loyal in this regard. I believed that you needed to show that you are able to develop a relationship with your employer through the test of time and have staying power. Employees’ best work often happens only in their latter years, when they are set, stable and confident.
I negotiated a long notice period with Vincent, emphasising that he could depart with my blessing only if he finished the work he had started on the new M&G site. But my request was irrelevant – he wanted to finish it.
The next downer was finding out that our newest recruit, Nic Haralambous, whom we had recently hired from the Financial Mail, had been negotiating about a new job with a supplier he was in contact with. They had offered to double his salary.
I was under pressure with Vincent leaving, and I knew I would shortly hand in my own resignation, but I felt that Nic had hardly served his time. He had been at the company barely six months, and was leaving us in the middle of a major site relaunch. But I just couldn’t reason with him, even as I tried to explain to him that his thinking was short-term, focused only on making more money as opposed to building relationships and a sustainable career.
As a young manager, I didn’t take resignations well: I was so vested in the work we were doing that I saw them as a sign of personal rejection. In Nic’s case, however, I was particularly outraged and felt it was unethical that he had started negotiating for a job with a supplier I had put him in touch with to serve