EDITORIAL: Christo Wiese has some cheek
Wiese’s eye-boggling legal claim is simply about elbowing his way into a seat at the table, while the restructuring process is hammered out
There is no little chutzpah in the R59bn claim by Christo Wiese, one of SA’s most accomplished businessmen, against crippled retailer Steinhoff, now shaping up to be the biggest corporate scandal in this country’s history. The implications of this lawsuit say much about how tone deaf many of our business leaders are to the prevailing sentiment in the country. Wiese’s claim against the firm is essentially that he was misled into swapping his stake in Pepkor, in 2015, for shares in Steinhoff, a deal which, at R68bn, was then SA’s largest retail transaction. His argument is that because Steinhoff’s accounts were a lie, thanks to shenanigans behind the scenes (understood to have allegedly been thanks to former CEO Markus Jooste), Wiese’s company Titan was duped into investing. Investors in Steinhoff will see this as some cheek. After all, in the aftermath of the Pepkor deal, Wiese ended up chairing Steinhoff for two years. Should Wiese, with his privileged access to management and a res...
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