How a P.R. Firm That Aided Despots and Rogues Met Its End in South Africa<br />The message was popularized with an incendiary phrase, “white monopoly capital.”<br />How Bell Pottinger went bankrupt is a tale of corporate skulduggery that seems lifted from “House of Cards,” the P. R.<br />During the Gupta disaster, a vicious boardroom struggle unfolded, one<br />that pitted a co-founder, Tim Bell, against James Henderson, 53, who ran the firm in the years before it went under.<br />Mr. Henderson issued a news release asserting the report contained statements that were “wholly untrue.”<br />Although Bell Pottinger was widely blamed for the social media campaign, a forensic analysis performed by the African Network of Centers for Investigative Reporting concluded<br />that it was created and overseen by employees and affiliates of the Guptas.<br />The Guptas and Mr. Zuma were so intertwined that critics had taken to referring to the “Zupta regime.”<br />As the power of the Guptas and their holding company, Oakbay Investments, gained attention, the family wanted the public relations equivalent of a stun grenade — a distraction<br />that would draw attention away from them and onto their many enemies.<br />Inside Bell Pottinger, it was widely believed that Mr. Bell wanted to damage the<br />company just enough to weaken Mr. Henderson and compel a change of leadership.<br />Mr. Bell said he soon resolved to quit the company because he felt undermined and undervalued by Mr. Henderson.
