Listed property company Fairvest has taken stinging criticism from a shareholder who has complained to the JSE Securities Exchange SA (JSE)that the company is a "disappointment and disaster".

Alex Romer, who owns about 171000 shares in Fairvest, was responding to an independent auditors' report, included in the company's 2003 annualreport, which says about 4,9-million shares that Fairvest held in anotherproperty company, Bonatla Holdings, were "unaccounted for at September30 2003".

It is unclear what has happened to these shares. Furthermore the independent auditors found that a 50c distribution owed by Bonatla Holdings to itsshareholders one of them Fairvest had not been paid.

This means that more than R2m that is owed to Fairvest as a Bonatla stakeholder has not been received.

In a letter to the JSE and Business Day this week, Romer said: "Andsome investment experts tell us one cannot go wrong when investing in realestate, well, then they have clearly not yet had the privilege to investin listed real estate shares such as those of Fairvest."

Doug Doel, who is GM of listings at the JSE, confirmed this week thathe had received a letter of complaint from Romer and said that the JSEwould investigate the complaint in terms of its listings requirements.

Doel said he could not comment until they had concluded the investigation.

Richard Wilkinson, independent chairman of Fairvest, said yesterday that the matter of the missing shares and the unpaid distribution had beenthe subject of a detailed forensic audit by "forensic auditors" appointedby the company.

This followed notification from the original auditors.

Wilkinson said Fairvest believed the 4,9-million shares should be registered in the name of Fairvest.

He said that Fairvest had received the forensic audit report and thecompany had forwarded it to its legal advisers.

Fairvest said it was awaiting a decision from its legal advisers on what steps to take next.

Wilkinson said the contents of the forensic audit report were confidential, but assured Fairvest shareholders that the company would recover the sharesand the monies owed to it.

"The shareholders of Fairvest can be rest assured that we'll leave nostone unturned in effecting a recovery," he said.

Both Fairvest and Bonatla have faced other difficulties recently.

Last month, Niki Vontas, former boss of Bonatla and executive directorof Fairvest, was sequestrated in his personal capacity for a debt of R75mowed for put options held by certain Bonatla shareholders.

Vontas received a high court judgment against him on May, 11 which hedid not oppose. He was forced to resign as a director of both companiesbecause of the sequestration. He said last month that Bonatla shareholders with put options had sold properties to Bonatla between four and five yearsago, when he was CEO of the company.

At that stage the share price was high, hovering between R2 and R3,15.

Vontas said a number of property sellers had asked him to guaranteea share price of between R2 and R2,20 and this had led to the establishmentof the put options, in terms of which he would agree to buy back the sharesin the price range they asked for.

However, in 2001 Bonatla's share price plummeted to 50c. Shareholders with put options exercised them, demanding that Vontas buy back the sharesat prices ranging between R2 and R2,20.

In May, Vontas said that "these obligations created a big pile of personal obligations" for him. He was faced with R75m debt resulting from the exerciseof the options.

Vontas said at the time that he was trying to reach a compromise agreementwith Bonatla shareholders.