Johannesburg - Billionaire businessman Christo Wiese has spoken out publicly following the SA Reserve Bank attaching former Steinhof CEO Markus Jooste’s assets worth billions of rand.
Wiese, who sold his farm to Jooste who offered him Steinhoff shares in exchange for the Lanzerac Wine Estate, says he is willing to “give him back his worthless shares”, in exchange for his Lanzerac wine farm.
On Tuesday, the SARB attached billions of rand of assets including those of the Silver Oak Trust, art worth about R98.78 million, financial assets worth R1.21 billion, loans receivable of R131.12m, Jooste’s house in Voelklip, Hermanus, six luxury vehicles, jewellery and other art worth some R795 400, books, documents, electronic devices and passwords, and the Lanzerac Wine Estate in Stellenbosch.
Jooste is the alleged ringleader in financial fraud that saw investors lose more than R200bn and resulted in the 95% collapse of the Steinhoff share price in 2017.
Speaking to Talk Radio 702’s Mandy Wiener on Wednesday, Wiese, who had also served on the Steinhoff board as chairperson, said he was pleasantly surprised that it was the SARB that took initiative.
He said although he did get some of his money back through a settlement paid by Steinhoff, he still wanted justice.
“I got some of my money back in the settlement done by the company Steinhoff and I am pretty confident in the end, the outcome will be the right outcome, because Jooste defrauded me of the Lanzerac property and paid with shares he knew to be worthless, so we have sued him to cancel the deal and claim back Lanzerac and give him back his worthless shares,” he said.
Wiese said he had no doubt the saga would be a long “drawn-out affair, but you can’t hide where the money has gone, particularly against the Reserve Bank, they can talk to banks and regulators all over the world, they are well placed to prosecute a matter like this”.
Wiese said he always believed that Jooste would face the music.
“I always believed that sooner or later they would have to answer, so in that sense I was not surprised.
“I often tell people who are very critical of our authorities that how come the Germans, who are really switched on, they are taking years to get to the bottom of this. That just tells you how complicated and sophisticated it was,” he said.
Business Report reported that SARB investigators also attached the assets of Berdine Odendaal, who is believed to have been Jooste’s romantic partner. The assets were attached last year.
The financial collapse of Steinhoff saw thousands of local and foreign investors, ranging from small to major shareholders, losing their investments.
In South Africa, the hardest hit benefactor was the Government Employees’ Pension Fund and Wiese.
BR reported that a PwC forensic investigation – of which only an executive summary was released – revealed substantial alleged accounting frauds and other governance failures at Steinhoff that had occurred between 2009 and 2017.
These, it said, included inflated profits that had been facilitated by fake transactions.
Steinhoff, which is recovering but saddled by large debt after having to pay out billions in settlement to investors locally and internationally, is assisting the Hawks and other state agencies with investigations into the Steinhoff matter.
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