SOUTH African racing is gripped in a battle royal for control between British bookmaker Betfred and leading owner/breeder Mary Slack.

Both want Phumelela, the public company that owns and/or manages five of the seven racecourses, pays their prize money, owns the country’s biggest bookmaker (Betting World) as well as the racing channel, and went broke during the three months with no racing.

When the company went into Business Rescue, Mrs Slack (née Oppenheimer) put up R100 million (roughly €5 million) to keep it going and then offered a further €27.5 million to take control.

Her late father was at one time the fifth richest man in the world and she puts up the money under the name of Mary Oppenheimer and Daughters; she has four daughters including Jessica Jell who is also a big owner/breeder.

Rival bid

However, Betfred, presumably keen to get its hands on the Betting World operation, made a rival bid worth €45 million plus a loan of €32.5 million. Most people in South African racing would much prefer to have Mrs Slack in financial control rather than a foreign bookie but it was up to the creditors to decide.

Financial commentators calculated that they would only receive about 70% of what they were owed under the Slack offer whereas Betfred’s bid would see them paid in full and there might even be enough for the beleaguered shareholders to benefit.

Surprisingly, the creditors voted against the Betfred offer in a Zoom meeting on Tuesday. This had been expected to be adjourned because Gold Circle (the company that owns and runs the Durban courses Greyville and Scottsville and owns 39% of the shares in Phumelela) went to the High Court that morning to try to get an order halting any action relating to the disposal of more than 61%. They were unsuccessful and the creditors went ahead with their own vote.

Mrs Slack was aggrieved that Betfred has come to the party at all. In a letter published on the Phumelela website, she described the Betfred offer as “naïve, optimistic and commercially unrealistic”.