Sygnia CEO Magda Wierzycka on Tuesday laughed off the charge of attempted extortion  laid against her by African Equity Empowerment Investments Limited (AEEI) and its CEO, Khalid Abdulla.

This comes after Wierzycka allegedly approached Abdulla to buy back shares that Abdulla, AEEI and Sekunjalo Investment Holdings have in Sygnia at a lower price.

“I have made a couple of attempts to buy back the shares that they bought at the listing of Sygnia at market-related valuations to part ways in a professional way from them. That’s it,” Wierzycka said.

Wierzycka said they offered to sell the shares at R20 per share.

“This was double what the share was trading at the time. I said, ‘No, thank you’. The second time I went back and said, 'We don’t have a healthy relationship - let’s walk away from each other'.”

Wierzycka said she then offered R7.50 a share when they were trading at R7.40.

“They didn’t come back to me.”

IOL reported that African Equity Empowerment Investments and Abdulla had laid a charge of attempted extortion against Wierzycka on Tuesday.

Wierzycka allegedly threatened to continue writing negative stories about Sekunjalo, AEEI and its associated company, AYO Technology Solutions. Sekunjalo owns Independent News & Media SA (INMSA).

In response to a tweet about the laying of the charge, Wierzycka used a series of crying- with-laughter emojis.

Wierzycka said she would add Tuesday’s article to her defamation suit against INMSA over articles in which it had called her a subliminal racist.