The Choppies owner who you don't see in the spotlight: Farouk Ismail

Good evening

Table of Contents

• Who is Farouk Ismail?

• His net-worth

• Did he attempt tax evasion in Botswana?

• Final conclusion

For months every-time I search for who owns top 10 of a company’s shares, I always saw a name that constantly showed up and that is the name Farouk Ismail. I didn’t know who this man was and made research about him to find out what he was about.

I came across really interesting information on him, so tonight I want to share with you some of the things I found

Who is Farouk Ismail?

He is a seasoned entrepreneur and cofounder of Choppies. He opened the first store in Lobatse in 1986 and the store was called Wayside Supermarket the company later evolved into Choppies Enterprises. (sources: Choppies group, The Patriot)

His net-worth

This one is tricky because it appears he has been selling a lot of his shares for God knows why but according to The Patriot in 2023 he held 21.03% in Choppies Enterprise but now, Mr. Farouk Ismail has a current $11.38 million/ P156 million with a a 17.3% stake in Choppies Enterprise. He owns 29% of Far Property around P247.1 million and BTCL with 1.26% stake valued at P14 million. (source:simplywall.st)

To get to the point, The Patriot and other sources points out he is worth $37.4 million. But he might be worth more than that, well that is secretly, this leads me to the last findings about him?

Did he attempt tax evasion in Botswana?

Let’s not jump to conclusions here, but let’s tell the story like it was told; according to Inkjournalism, Mr Farouk sold parts of his stake of Choppies to an off-market transaction back in 2013 to Standard Chartered Bank Mauritius and grabbed $60 million along the way. (inkjournalism)

This information was leaked from Panama-based-law firm, Mossack Fonseca, and this was an exploitation of loopholes on Botswana’s tax legislation to avoid tax at home. Using a network of agents and lawyers to execute this.(inkjournalism) However the documents do not establish that the Choppies magnate used the network of companies set up by Mossack Fonseca to evade taxes, but the commercial purposes have yet to be explained.

Inkjournalism further reveals that in October 2014 Mr Ismail and five family members used agents in London and Dubai to invest in Lagnay Road Investment Limited using an elaborate system, using concealment in the controversial tax haven of the Bahamas, this is from documents revealed by German newspaper called Suddeutsche Zeitung and shared by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).

What raises alarm for me is that this law firm called Mossack Fonseca is a discredited law-firm that helped politicians, criminals and gangsters to evade tax and hide funds off-shore was used by Ismail’s agents to register Ismail’s company in the Bahamas. (read further on inkjournalism )

Final conclusion

So what is Mr Ismail’s real networth? Him having a net-worth only of $37.4 million does not make sense since in 2013 he made $60 million, which in today’s time is equivalent to P826 177 488 million. $37.4 million only equals P515 861 940 million. So you might be looking at a net-worth exceeding 1.24 Billion Pula.

So am I saying he is engaged in tax evasion like the other 120 elite Batswana exploiting tax legislation loopholes? No, like the paper says, commercial purpose of the network of companies have yet to be explained, but this opens up new issues of articles that might go in many directions of how the rich in Botswana evade taxes.

[Sources: The Patriot bw, Inkjournalism the Panama-papers,The Choppies group, simplywall.st ]