To make matters worse, Bohbot shocked the market when he suddenly stepped down at the end of June 2017.<\/p>\n
The EOH share price plummeted from R171 in December 2016 to under R50 a share a year later. Something was clearly wrong at the company.<\/p>\n
EOH employed former MTN executive Stephen van Coller as CEO in September 2018 to fix the mess. This was not an easy task.<\/p>\n
Corruption scandals continued to emerge, and by March 2020, the EOH share price dipped below R3.00. This caused tremendous wealth destruction.<\/p>\n
![\"Stephen](\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Stephen-van-Coller-640x426.jpg\")
<\/a>EOH CEO Stephen van Coller<\/p><\/div>\n
Despite the challenges faced by EOH, Van Coller remained focused on weeding out corruption and addressing the company\u2019s debt burden.<\/p>\n
This strategy started to pay dividends. For the six months to months to 31 January 2021, EOH showed an operating profit of R59 million – a big improvement over the R915 million loss in the prior period.<\/p>\n
The EOH share price also had a good run. It improved from R2.59 in March 2020 to R9.60 in January 2021.<\/p>\n
Since then, however, it has not been a good year for EOH. Its share price declined by 46% this year as the company continues its struggle to rid itself of its corrupt past.<\/p>\n
Van Coller\u2019s transparent cooperation with the SIU, Hawks, and the Enquiry into State Capture had unintended consequences<\/a><\/strong>. EOH became the poster child for corporate corruption in South Africa.<\/p>\n Steven Nathan, the founder of 10X Investments, said Van Coller\u2019s actions keep reminding people about corruption at EOH, which has a negative impact on clients and staff.<\/p>\n Nathan said Van Coller\u2019s decision to play open cards about corruption at EOH “definitely had consequences and some downside.”<\/p>\n EOH became a soft target for the government and law enforcement agencies to show they are taking action against corruption.<\/p>\n In April 2021, the SIU released a press statement about uncovering irregularities related to a R250 million Microsoft Software Licences procurement contract awarded to EOH by the Department of Defence (DoD).<\/p>\n The SIU found that the contract was irregular and that EOH overcharged the department by more than R40 million.<\/p>\n What was strange about the SIU announcement is that it was nothing new. EOH actually agreed to pay back the money at the end of September 2020.<\/p>\n It did not matter. It reminded the market that EOH was a corrupt company, and investors continued to sell their EOH stock as they do not like risk.<\/p>\n Luvuyo Keyise, SITA executive caretaker and administrative authority<\/p><\/div>\n In July, EOH suffered another blow when it emerged that it was close to being blacklisted from doing business with the government as punishment for tender fraud.<\/p>\n The State Information Technology Agency (SITA) was reportedly looking at recommending to National Treasury that EOH should be restricted from doing business with the public sector.<\/p>\n SITA\u2019s executive caretaker and administrative authority, Luvuyo Keyise, would not comment in this report. He did, however, say, \u201cthe government\u2019s hard-line against corruption should be backed up by reform\u201d.<\/p>\n EOH hit back, saying it should not be blacklisted for tender irregularities because the corruption was perpetrated by the old management of EOH, who has left the company.<\/p>\n \u201cEOH and ENSafrica have suggested to SITA they should recommend that the old EOH management be blacklisted and not the new leadership,\u201d EOH said.<\/p>\n In August, the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) announced it would investigate four IT contracts to the value of R474 million awarded to EOH by the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS).<\/p>\n The contracts linked to corruption and maladministration were awarded by the DWS to EOH between 2012 and 2017.<\/p>\n The continued reports of corruption and potential blacklisting took their toll, and the EOH share price plummeted by 46% in 2021.<\/p>\n Asked about the share price decline, Van Coller said they could not speculate on the trading environment and EOH share price.<\/p>\n He highlighted that EOH has not sent out any recent communications to the market that may have influenced the share price.<\/p>\n \u201cHowever, it is important to note that our shares are very thinly traded, and this creates volatility,\u201d Van Coller said.<\/p>\n He added that EOH\u2019s share register has remained stable with their largest shareholders from the beginning of 2021 remaining invested.<\/p>\n The loyalty among large shareholders, Van Coller said, shows their trust in EOH’s continuous progress in its turnaround plan.<\/p>\n Asked whether he feels that EOH is paying the price for its transparent approach to corruption at the company, Van Coller said he still believes it is the best approach.<\/p>\n \u201cEOH believes that through its transparent engagements, some uncertainty may have been created as we close out legacy issues,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cHowever, as a listed company, it would be unethical for us not to give shareholders a transparent view of the issues the company is dealing with for them to make their investment decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n He said EOH had made significant progress in closing out the legacy issues and has made provisions on its balance sheet that are a best estimate of the expected outcome.<\/p>\n \u201cEOH financial statements have been audited by the EOH auditors and resulted in an unqualified audit for the 2020 financial year,\u201d Van Coller said.<\/p>\n \u201cHowever, until all the issues are closed out, there may be a level of uncertainty as to the actual fair value of EOH shares.\u201d<\/p>\n He said EOH would continue to cooperate with the authorities to get to the correct and fair outcome based on the actual facts.<\/p>\n \u201cEOH trusts that this matter can be concluded on an accelerated basis as certainty on this issue will also remove any perceived uncertainty in the market,\u201d Van Coller said.<\/p>\n EOH’s share price plummeted this year as the company struggles to rid itself of its corrupt past.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":394413,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[33731,6428,35,70291,24260,18068,37913],"class_list":["post-411172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-asher-bohbot","tag-eoh","tag-headline","tag-luvuyo-keyise","tag-special-investigating-unit-siu","tag-state-information-technology-agency-sita","tag-stephen-van-coller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411172"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411172"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":411188,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411172\/revisions\/411188"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Luvuyo](\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Luvuyo-Keyise-lowres.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/EOH-share-price-640x329.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nNow read: EOH CEO Stephen van Coller has done a phenomenal job \u2013 it is now time to believe<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"