THE HIGH COST OF A ‘MISTAKE’

Markus Jooste has gone from lauded Steinhoff CEO to villain within weeks — in part because the victims who lost millions are so close to him

The most profound mystery at the heart of the unravelling scandal at Steinhoff is why Markus Jooste, the 56-year-old son of a postal worker, a man with a passion for rugby and horse racing, threw it all away by committing what he, in a resignation letter to staff, called “big mistakes”.

However, labelling it a “mistake” underestimates the gravity of the situation. It’s a bit like describing the Marikana massacre as a touch of “police overreach”, Robert Mugabe’s ejection from the Zimbabwean presidency after 37 years as a “political realignment” or Donald Trump as “inward-looking”. Corporate euphemisms have never been great at conveying the horror of something truly terrifying.

And it’s not just the pension funds or unit trusts that have taken a smack due to Steinhoff’s precipitous 86% drop in value over the past six weeks; Jooste’s “mistake” has also scythed through the fortunes of many within the familia of the so-called Stellenbosch mafia.

Take Pieter Erasmus, the 52-year-old former CEO of Pepkor, who was asked by Christo Wiese to step up after Jooste’s resignation to help untangle the mess.

Unfortunately for Erasmus, his family trust was the largest preference shareholder of an opaque investment company listed on the Stock Exchange of Mauritius and in Namibia called Trevo Capital. As luck would have it, Trevo’s largest asset was, until very recently, an estimated US$140M in Steinhoff shares.

Trevo was ostensibly set up in 2009 amid the palm trees and white coral beaches of Port Louis, Mauritius, as a vehicle for “high-net-worth individuals looking for capital growth”, according to its business plan.

Erasmus isn’t the only Steinhoff insider to lose plenty. Thousands of Steinhoff employees have shares in the company