Wiese calls for overhaul and sues Steinhoff for R59bn
● Steinhoff’s largest shareholder, Christo Wiese, is calling for a restructuring of the company after issuing a summons as he sues the retailer for about R59-billion.
His claim is based on investments his company, Titan Group, had made in Steinhoff between 2015 and 2016.
Wiese told Business Times on Thursday: “The simple truth is that in any company there are a number of stakeholders; the current shareholders, the creditors and the claimants. The best way forward is for them to sit around the table and decide how to restructure the company going forward.”
A statement released by Titan calls for a repayment on the subscription of shares bought by Titan in 2015 for the Pepkor acquisition. The second claim relates to Titan’s capital injection into Steinhoff in 2016 to enable it to meet its debt obligations when it bought US-based Mattress Firm.
Wiese said when Steinhoff bought Mattress Firm, despite having to fund the acquisition by paying off the debt, “there were no red flags. The business was evaluated and bought, why should there be red flags?”
But an analyst, who did not want to be named, described the claims put forward by the Titan Group as “ridiculous”.
“I don’t believe he’s got any basis to sue the company for those transactions. He certainly has some very large questions to answer given that he was the chairman of Steinhoff for a very long time, who is supposed to be the individual overseeing the governance of the group,” the analyst said.
The analyst said Wiese still hadn’t repaid the à200-million (about R3-billion) that Shoprite had paid to Steinhoff Africa Retail, which was linked to a Shoprite and Steinhoff merger which never went ahead.
“It could be a deflection tactic because there are certain things that took place on that [Steinhoff] off-balance sheet structure that make it very difficult to imagine a scenario where Wiese didn’t know that these things were happening,” the analyst said.
Recently Steinhoff has been issued several lawsuits by creditors, including Dutchbased shareholder group VEB, after it had given notice of its plans to file a class action lawsuit against Barclays, Commerzbank and Absa for the role they played in a 2015 share sale by Steinhoff.
As Steinhoff looks for its good assets to generate cash, some, including Wiese, believe that Pepkor may be the lifeline. But as to whether this would mean Wiese would want Pepkor back, he said: “I don’t know what the outcome of those [restructuring] discussions will be, we’ll have to see.”
Steinhoff did not respond to questions, instead it referred Business Times to its SENS statement, which noted: “The company will assess the claims [from Wiese] and determine the appropriate course of action.”
Asked if he was distancing himself from the troubles of his former company, Wiese said: “I have never had to distance myself from anything that happened. I’m the entity that invested that money in the business.”