Afrigather Cape City — In what is taken into account the largest corruption case within the historical past of South Africa, furnishings large Steinhoff is alleged to have misrepresented its steadiness sheets to shareholders for quite a few years – a discovery that led to the hasty exit of its CEO Markus Jooste on December 5, 2017. The scandal noticed a 90% drop within the agency’s share value.
After years of authorized wrangling, the South African Reserve Bank on October 18, 2022 lastly swooped on belongings belonging to Jooste, Eye Witness News studies.
Among the many connected belongings are the Lanzarac Wine Farm in Stellenbosch – swapped by its former proprietor, billionaire Christo Wiese, for shares in Steinhoff that proved to subsequent to nugatory, and an enormous residence within the seaside city of Hermanus. Luxurious autos, paintings and jewellery has additionally been seized.
Jooste was additionally slapped with a hefty effective for insider trading when he warned a good friend a day earlier than the Steinhoff saga was uncovered, to promote his shares. The South African authorities convened a number of inquiries into Steinhoff. Many pension fund managers had invested within the agency, dropping their members’ pensions.
In 2021, German prosecutors accomplished their felony investigation into steadiness sheet manipulation at Steinhoff, which had a main itemizing on the Frankfurt Inventory Trade. The corporate was delisted from the alternate on April 29, 2022.
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