PWC INVESTIGATION
Fortress investors to wait longer for answers
Investors in retail property owner Fortress, one of the companies in the Resilient stable that was embroiled in insider trading and market manipulation allegations that wiped out about R120bn of their value, have longer to wait for answers. Audit firm PwC, which Fortress appointed in November after pressure from institutional investors, has extended its probe and hopes to release a report at the end of April, Robin Lockhart-Ross, the nonexecutive director who heads the committee that the company set up to look into the matter, told Business Day on Wednesday. In one of SA’s biggest corporate scandals — surpassed in recent history only by the disclosure in December 2017 of alleged fraud that led to a more than 90% collapse in Steinhoff International’s share price — Fortress, Resilient, Nepi Rockcastle and Greenbay Properties’ shares were sold off in 2018 after accusations of market manipulation. Fortress stock has dropped 28% on the JSE in 2019 so far, valuing it at R33.6bn. Its share...
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