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Rhys Summerton bought into a company that had lost 99.5% of its market value and told the independent directors their pay was being halved on day one. At BNC#9, the Milkwood Capital founder and iOCO joint CEO laid out how a fund manager turned operator actually runs the acquisition game: why control of the cash flow matters more than a board seat, why he thinks South Africa's King Code has been "not net positive" for corporate governance, why US executives paying themselves 4% of market cap is a warning sign, and why he wants nothing to do with companies burning billions on AI capex.

Carl Neethling didn't set out to run Ascendis Health. A small, almost accidental shareholding tripped a JSE disclosure threshold, and not long after that he was locked out of his own email on the day he took the company over. What he found inside: nineteen accountants who, in his words, spent their days counting money that no longer existed, a head office costing more each year than the whole business was worth, and a regulator that ruled his takeover consortium had broken the law, only for a high court to tear the ruling up. He calls it the most painful experience of his life, and he's adamant Ascendis will never go anywhere near the JSE again.

Old Mutual almost closed its gold fund in 2019. A ballot most clients ignore drew a 13% response, and that was enough to keep it alive. Six years later it has gone from R400 million to R4 billion, and the fund's manager, Meryl Pick, was at BNC#9 taking questions on everything that got her there. Speaking to delegates, she explained why Warren Buffett's scepticism on gold is a product of the era he grew up in, why she thinks the past 80 years of globalisation were the anomaly rather than the norm, and what she's actually watching in central bank buying to know if this time really is different. She takes on gold versus Bitcoin, why Canada might be fine without reserves while New Zealand should worry, and how a country inflates its way out of a debt trap.

In his latest interview with Chris Steyn, Ian Cameron, the Chairperson of Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Police, has a very direct message for Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia who - at the SAPS National Commemoration Day for fallen heroes - introduced him to the Free State MEC as “Chairperson Cameron, the one that always lambasts the police in the media” . Cameron says: “I thought to myself, you know what? I bleed with the police, I cry with the police, I absolutely live for the police. And every single question and every single matter that I take on is a matter based on information that the good cops shared with me, the cops that actually had the guts to come forward and speak…So I take it very personally when a comment is made that disregards the hard work that we put in. So the message is very, very simple: whether the Minister likes it or not, and whether we get pushback or not on the questions that we ask, we will keep asking. We will keep highlighting and we will keep exposing.” Furthermore, Cameron speaks about his long battle to hold accountable Major-General Feroz Khan who has finally been sacked. He shares details of epic battles to deal with shortages of vehicles (and even R5s) at various police units and stations. He also shares photos of horrific injuries suffered by an arson-detection dog at the SAPS Veterinary facility at Roodeplaat, prompting him to lay criminal charges.

Ten years after Brett Redelinghuys was banned for trying to expose problems from the inside, World Aquatics has provisionally suspended Swimming SA's president and CEO over abuse of power allegations, vindicating his years-long fight. Elsewhere, IRR pollster Hermann Pretorius tells Chris Steyn why South African women, not men, are the ANC's real firewall against the DA. At BNC#9 in the Drakensberg, constitutional expert Paul Hoffman makes the case for the DA's devolution plan and a police overhaul, while Afrimat's Andries van Heerden argues Transnet's turnaround is the proof South Africa's negative narrative needs correcting.