Jason Goodall, the former group CEO of Dimension Data and NTT Ltd, has admitted that he secretly took part on the buying side of the 2019 sale of Dimension Data’s Bryanston head office, The Campus, while advising NTT on the selling side. He has agreed to pay NTT about R208.6 million (US$12.5 million) in a settlement, TechCentral reported on 7 October.
What Goodall admitted
In a signed statement dated 5 October, provided to TechCentral by Stein Scop Attorneys, which acts for NTT, Goodall named four other former Dimension Data executives, Jeremy Ord, Steven Nathan, Saki Missaikos and Grant Bodley, as having taken part on both sides of the transaction with him. He wrote that their interests “were held through nominees in a structure designed to keep our names hidden” and called the non-disclosure “a very serious breach of fiduciary duty”. NTT confirmed that the statement is authentic. Its footer refers to a settlement agreement dated 5 October, which has not been published.
The four executives deny it
Ord, Nathan, Missaikos and Bodley deny wrongdoing and responded the same day. They said Goodall was not authorised to speak for them, that his admission is inconsistent with what he had deposed to under oath, and that its wording is the product of the settlement he negotiated with NTT. They said the investment fund was designed by Identity Partners and approved by NTT on advice from law firm Webber Wentzel and a commercial bank, and was not meant to hide their participation. They said they invested because The Campus was seen, by them and by NTT, as part of a management buyout they were negotiating with NTT. Goodall’s statement says their conduct “was not excused by any potential management buyout”. “The entire matter is sub judice,” the four said.
How the case got here
The Campus, a 75 000 m² office park, was sold in December 2019 to Identity Property Fund, a black women-led consortium headed by investment banker Sonja de Bruyn. Dimension Data leased back its space, and the deal helped lift the company from a level-4 to a level-2 B-BBEE contributor. Bloomberg later reported the price as R1.4 billion. TechCentral reported in January 2022 that a forensic investigation by law firm Herbert Smith Freehills, commissioned by NTT after a whistle-blower came forward, had found that former executives failed to disclose personal financial interests in the sale.
In November 2024, Johannesburg High Court judge Denise Fisher declared the sale void. She found that six former executives, Ord, Goodall, Bodley, Nathan, Missaikos and Bruce Watson, had “entered into an illegal scheme designed to appropriate for themselves a secret financial benefit”. She ordered that The Campus be returned to Dimension Data, now NTT Data, and awarded punitive costs. She granted leave to appeal in January 2025, and the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein heard the appeal on 11 May 2026, with Goodall among the appellants. Judgment was reserved and it is not known when it will be handed down.
NTT’s attorneys said the South African proceedings against Ord, Nathan, Missaikos, Bodley, Watson and property consultant Martin Epstein continue. Goodall was not on that list. TechCentral understands that the settlement ends both NTT’s UK claim, filed in January 2023 to recover a $17.6 million retirement package, and the South African proceedings against him, though this has not been directly confirmed. Watson is not named in Goodall’s statement and did not take part in the four executives’ response.
A company remembered
In a column on 8 October, TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod wrote that the company “deserves to be remembered for more than this”. Dimension Data was founded in 1983, listed on the JSE in 1987 and entered the FTSE 100 in 2000 before the dot-com bust. It was acquired by NTT in 2010, folded into NTT Ltd in 2019, and its name disappeared on 1 April 2024. The business continues as NTT Data in the Middle East and Africa. The opinions in that column are McLeod’s, and the findings against the former executives remain under appeal.
For more coverage of corporate governance and technology, see our Tech & Telco section.
