BOOK excerpt
How it all began for Pep mogul Christo Wiese
SA’s retail magnate had a humble childhood in Upington, but even then he was good at spotting opportunities
“In some ways, I’m quite lucky to have lost only R59bn. If this thing had happened just one year later, I would have lost everything.”
These are the words of Christo Wiese, the man who describes himself as a “failed lawyer”, but who has been described by others as SA’s answer to Walmart founder Sam Walton or celebrity investor Warren Buffett, or even as the real-life counterpart of JR Ewing, the scheming oil baron in the soapie Dallas. Since the early 1980s, Wiese has been the ace dealmaker of corporate SA, wresting control of some of the finest brands. By 2015, his portfolio included cash retailer Pep, Africa’s largest supermarket chain, Shoprite, and gym chain Virgin Active as well as a trolley of London high-street retailers. That brain-numbing R59bn he lost in Steinhoff was about half his fortune. It’s more money than all but a handful of people on the globe stand any prospect of ever amassing, let alone seeing vanish. And yet, it could have been worse. Steinhoff’s dénouem...
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