The Public Investment Corporation (PIC) has appointed five new board members at chicken producer Daybreak Farms, which has been suffering from governance challenges for more than a year.
The state-owned asset manager has been trying to replace the directors for some time. Last month it threatened to drag Daybreak Farms' directors to court to force them to hold a shareholders' meeting, where it would consider voting them out.
In its court papers, it said it wanted the directors to answer questions about the findings of a forensic probe into allegations of weak governance, abrupt dismissals of senior staff, and wasteful legal fees.
Senior staff at Daybreak started complaining about its board in early 2021. Many were subsequently fired or forced out, including CEO Boas Seruwe. Daybreak's directors strenuously denied any wrongdoing and even tried to get a court order to stop employees from calling it corrupt.
New faces
On Wednesday, the PIC said that Vuyelwa Viola Matsiliza had been appointed as the group's new chair. She will take over from Lerato Nage. Matsiliza currently serves on the board of the Export Credit Insurance Corporation of South Africa.
The other four board members are Michelle Odayan, Michelle Merle Mbaco, Kameshni Naidoo and Sagaylan Kamelon Moodliar. None of Daybreak's previous board members were retained.
"The new board members were approved by the PIC’s Directors Affairs Committee following a thorough internal selection process," the PIC said in a statement.
"The PIC believes that the new board will greatly assist with restoring good corporate governance at Daybreak and to ensure that the company focuses on its core business for the benefit of its shareholders on whose behalf the PIC invests, and for the benefit of the company’s employees," it said.
The appointment of a new board may mean that staff fired by the previous board will return to the chicken producer.
Late last year the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration ordered that Seruwe be reinstated and paid R2 million in back pay. But his return was stymied after Daybreak took the matter to the Labour Court on appeal.
Server theft?
Meanwhile, Daybreak Farms has denied reports that thieves stole a computer server containing sensitive financial information last week, saying that while a robbery did take place, no financial records are missing.
Last week the Sunday Times reported that a server containing financial information had been stolen from Daybreak Farms' headquarters in Olifantsfontein, east of Johannesburg.
The newspaper quoted a source who said that the robbery had been staged to get rid of the server which allegedly contained details of "dodgy" payments.
Daybreak Farms confirmed on Wednesday that a robbery took place at its headquarters on last week.
But it said that no sensitive financial records had been stolen.
"Men wearing balaclavas overpowered our security guards at our head offices and warehouse storage facility at Olifantsfontein on in the evening and gained access to the premises," it said.
Police confirmed they were investigating the robbery. No arrests have yet been made.
Daybreak said the only thing the men appeared to have stolen were CCTV DVRs. They also broke CCTV cameras after forcing their way into the group's warehouse, where its chicken products are stored.