The intricacies of pulling off Steinheist
A new TV series delves into the Steinhoff scandal in a way that ordinary South Africans will understand
On December 6 2017, after its CEO Markus Jooste resigned during an investigation into accounting irregularities, the share price of Steinhoff fell a whopping 90% in a week. The crisis in the company once lauded as the “Ikea of Africa” wiped R200bn off the JSE and from the accounts of the pension funds of ordinary South Africans. The Steinhoff collapse also cost Christo Wiese billions of dollars, turning the dollar multibillionaire into a mere dollar multimillionaire overnight.
In recent years documentaries, series and films that deal with the opaque world of finance — such as Enron, Inside Job, The Big Short, The Inventor, The Dropout and WeCrash — have found popular success. Couple that with its status as the biggest corporate fraud in SA’s history and the Steinhoff scandal made perfect sense for production company Idea Candy — responsible for Showmax’s massive docuseries hit Devilsdorp — to choose as their next project. ..
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