[imagesource: Kyle Cowan / News24]

When your business empire is being flogged off one car and one boardroom table at a time, you know it’s come crashing down.

Gavin Watson’s Bosasa, subsequently rebranded as African Global Operations when the criminality of the enterprise was laid bare, has been stripped apart and sold to the highest bidders in an auction run by Park Village Auctions and Bidders Choice.

Last week, we took a stroll around the premises, including a look inside Watson’s ‘lair’, and auctioneers said they hoped to bring in around R65 million.

They’ve exceeded that figure with room to spare, reports BusinessTech, as the more than 1 000 bidders combined for a total of approximately R100 million, excluding VAT.

Many of those bidders were particularly interested in the fleet of vehicles, so let’s start there:

Among the luxury vehicles, the infamous blue BMW X5 driven by the late Gavin Watson sold for R590,000 excluding VAT and commission.

Other noteworthy vehicle sales include a 2016 Mercedes Benz C250 (95,640km) sold for R255,000—well below the average used selling price.

Park Village Auction’s Graham van Niekerk said that online vehicle bidding alone fetched over R2 million.

The second day of the auction focused on the properties, where the bulk of that R100 million was made:

The Smart Global Campus premises, the head office of AGO/Bosasa operations, fetched R14 million excluding VAT and commission.

The Lindela Repatriation Centre sold for R60 million ex commission and VAT.

Lastly, the property on which Rodcor, the ‘to-be-commissioned”’ copper plant stands sold for R11.5 million excluding vat and commission.

Some of the other items of interest sold off were the contents of the ‘prayer room’ (yes, Bosasa was cultish), which went for R40 000, and an industrial Nespresso coffee machine, with other bits and bobs, that went for R96 000.

You’re going to have to churn out the coffee to justify that kind of price tag.

Finally, the boardroom table, which you can see below, the 20 chairs, a flip chart and a magazine stand went for R242 000.

I would give that table a good wipedown before use, given what came out  in Adriaan Basson’s book, Blessed by Bosasa: Inside Gavin Watson’s state capture cult:

Basson also reveals details of male executives preying on female staff. One executive bought a fridge for every woman he had sex with, while another was caught having sex on a boardroom table. Cleaners also complained of the company’s guesthouse on the Bosasa premises in Krugersdorp, with “all the semen” staining the desks, floor and beds.

Yeah, on second thought it might need a steam cleaning.

All of the items sold, and the prices they fetched, can be found here.

[source:bustech]