ROB ROSE: Brait sets a disturbing precedent
Investment company Brait is under fire for footing a R1.1bn bill for a share incentive scheme for its executives that went belly-up
In what seems to be a pretty poor advert for the "free market", Brait, owner of Virgin Active and Premier Foods, has decided to bail out a handful of its top brass at an almighty cost to shareholders of R1.1bn. It’s a disturbing turn of events, though not entirely unpredictable since the investment firm, in which Christo Wiese is the largest shareholder, has been under serious strain in recent years. Mostly, this is because it bought a lemon in 2015: the UK high street women’s fashion specialist New Look. It was a horrific deal. Brait valued New Look at R34bn in March 2016, but within two years it had written down the fashion chain to exactly zero. PODCAST: Hear from the Steinhoff whistleblowers Subscribe: iono.fm | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Pocket Cast | Player.fm The upshot? An 84% fall in Brait’s share price, reducing its market capitalisation from R84bn to just R12bn today. Now, that’s just business. In any investment company, you hope to have more deals that work out like your...
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