FINANCIAL SCANDAL
HILARY JOFFE: Steinhoff lessons come at a colossal cost
A week after the board of Steinhoff International said it was investigating "accounting irregularities" and German prosecutors confirmed they were investigating whether the Frankfurt-listed group had inflated its revenue and book value, we still know very little of what actually went down. Whether it was Enron-style fancy financial engineering or just common or garden fraud remains entirely unclear. What is clear, however, is that the fallout from the Steinhoff scandal, for SA Incorporated and corporate SA, is huge, and hugely damaging.The damage to SA’s reputation could be significant. SA Inc has been a place where stakeholders could trust the accounts and the veracity of the audit reports, a country highly rated for its accounting standards, corporate governance and protection of minority shareholders. Steinhoff has put question marks over all of that, especially coming as it does so soon after the KPMG scandal. Questions have now been raised about the probity of some of SA’s regu...
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