He worked for R1 a month to save a failing business. Now Carl Neethling will never list again

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.