Some interested parties may regard the nondisclosure of Tekkie Town’s threatened legal action ahead of the placement of Star shares as an indication that the Steinhoff board is being less than forthright about its difficulties. But generally the board has been forthright about the immensity of the problems. Consider the opening page of last week’s presentation to lenders. At the bottom of the page was the warning "… but the current position is fragile and the need for a solution in the short term is critical". On the same page in that presentation is the startling admission that Steinhoff’s Austrian companies, Steinhoff Europe and Steinhoff Finance Holdings, are vulnerable due to insolvency risk. Perhaps it should not be a startling admission given events of the past six months and given the recent announcement that Steinhoff Europe would not be paying any dividends to its preference shareholders. But it is startling in the context of a company that, as recently as 2016, was valued ...
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