In memory of Deon Basson, a great forensic business journalist

South Africa lost one of its greatest investigative journalists and a fine thinker when Deon Basson died this week.

What endeared him to me, aside from my admiration of his understanding of insurance companies and the determination that made him one of South Africa’s finest investigative business journalists, was a lack of obvious vanity.

The clue, I guess, lay in his appearance. When it came to fashion, Columbo was his muse. I carry an indelible picture of him in my mind, peering at me over his glasses, making some wry comment about corporate machinations or political buffoonery. He was always spot-on. I will miss the down-to-earth quality that made him so different to the often slick and clever crooks who were his target.

I felt I could rely on Deon for the factual, careful understanding of complex financial problems. So he was a natural for me to call on when I mounted a TV discussion in 1996 on the truly tragic Bob Aldworth’s just-published book on Absa, The Infernal Tower.

The discussion included a link-up with former Tollgate Holdings chairman Julian Askin in London. Askin and Aldworth, both for different reasons at the receiving end of legal actions by Absa, had formed a common front against the bank, with Askin alleging Absa had pulled the plug on his company because it had a secret Reserve Bank lifeboat loan from the company.

Deon was skeptical about Askin, and I trusted his instincts and his understanding of the matter, asking him to come onto the show to present some balance to Askin and Aldworth, since Absa itself refused to participate.

I remember the contrast between Deon’s rather non-photogenic TV appearance and the suave Askin. Another difference was that Deon was credible: Askin’s claims of being a victim of a dark conspiracy by Absa against him seemed overblown.

Deon was already an award-winning journalist. His credibility grew over the years, winning in 2002 the Sanlam Financial Journalist of the Year for the sixth time, at which point he retired voluntarily to give others a chance.

As a judge on the Sanlam awards panel I was at least partly responsible for that sixth win, and as someone keenly interested in business journalism I could hardly escape his reporting, though we never actually worked together. I understand he could be a trial to edit — the dogged attention to detail he used in pursuing his stories was his way of working.

During recent research I have done on the perceptions of South African business editors about the profession, Deon was held out as an example of a financial journalist who knows a lot but is difficult for the man or woman in the street to understand.

Former colleague Caroline Southey describes trying at the Financial Mail to edit one of his articles into language understandable by ordinary people and of Deon accusing her of trying to turn the Financial Mail into a “retail publication”.

He struck me as too independent-minded to be a company man, lasting briefly as editor of the joint Finance Week/Finansies & Tegniek operation before moving to the Financial Mail.

Some of his articles went further than many would have dared. He once urged readers of Finance Week rather to surrender their insurance policies and pay off debt than keep on paying what he felt were excessive costs to the insurance companies for mediocre returns. For those steeped in the common wisdom that people should cling to their policies at all costs this was revolutionary. For the insurance companies who had always sold policies based on the long-term reward the message was heretical.

His doggedness in investigating both the powerful and the dishonest (sometimes they were the same person) gained him equally determined enemies. Deon took on Gary Porrit and Sue Bennet of Tigon. The company employed a private investigator to dig up his medical history, which was used to try to discredit him. He was vindicated when Porrit and Bennet were later arrested for fraud, and the vast scam that was Tigon was revealed in all its ugliness.

In that company, as in others, Deon had stayed on the trail of corporate wrongdoing. How did he know where to look in the first place? Deon had some good advice for both investors and investigative reporters about the clues that showed something was amiss with the governance of a company.

In an interview with Moneyweb, Basson noted the four warning signs:
* An autocratic chief executive,
* Non-disclosure,
* Companies constantly selling shares, or a lot of paper activity, and
* The chief executive talking a great deal about the share price of the company rather than its operations.

Having noted these, Deon then went about the time-consuming and tedious process of gathering a voluminous amount of information, both published and unpublished, before taking on those involved.

The complexity of the financial dealings that often deliberately hides illegal activity and the confrontation involved puts off many journalists. There are easier stories. And this is why Deon was so valuable.

Deon became concerned about the threat increasing commercialisation of media posed for freedom of speech and investigative journalism. But he felt that the internet and funding from non-profit organisations might counter-balance this to some extent. He himself used his website www.deonbasson.co.za to take his own work further. It’s worth a visit, if only to see the great volume of work he undertook in his career.

It is a cliché that someone will be missed, but our society is the poorer for not having more journalists of Deon Basson’s commitment and wisdom around.