COURT RULING
Court rules against Lodestone sale interdict
Days after controversial businessperson Markus Jooste claimed that he had nothing to do with Steinhoff’s accounting scandal, the former CEO of the beleaguered retailer was handed a victory by the high court in Johannesburg on Friday. The court ruled that his Mayfair Holdings investment company could sell its Lodestone Brands business using a mechanism that will force Lodestone’s minority shareholders to also offload their shares. Lodestone’s brands include Rascals sweets and the Fusion range of dairy blend concentrates. The ruling will help Mayfair to repay loans backed by now-collapsed Steinhoff shares.
The founders of Lodestone’s three underlying firms, who are also its minority shareholders, went to court in a bid to stop Mayfair and Standard Bank, the appointed investment bank, from going ahead with the sale. The applicants, who own about 22% of Lodestone, argued that Mayfair should either sell its shares without forcing them to do the same or should sell its stake to them...
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