Christo Wiese on the Steinhoff saga
Multibillionaire Christo Wiese talks about how he was taken in by Markus Jooste – and what the future holds for him
THE gentle autumn sun lights up the neat courtyard of the luxury bungalow on Clifton’s sought-after Fourth Beach. An enormous wooden door leading into the main house is open, inviting you in – and once inside you can see the waves breaking in the blue ocean beyond.
This is the place billionaire businessman Christo Wiese has called home for more than 40 years and in the past four months it’s been his sanctuary as he faces the biggest storm of his career.
At one point not so long ago he was worth an astonishing R105 billion, making him the richest person in South Africa. But after his colleague Markus Jooste suddenly quit as executive head of Steinhoff late last year amid allegations of accounting irregularities, Christo (76) had to watch helplessly as his vast fortune – which was invested largely in the international retail conglomerate – shrank at an alarming rate.
The tycoon is now estimated to be worth R33,7 billion. Hardly small potatoes but still a fraction of what it used to be.
But as Christo enters the lounge of his Cape Town home he hardly looks like a man who’s been sitting around licking his wounds. Despite everything that’s happened he still has a commanding presence. He’s friendly enough – but once he takes a seat he speaks firmly and authoritatively.
In December after the Steinhoff bomb burst the business legend stayed quiet, declining to comment on the debacle. It’s only recently he’s started to open up about the drama.
Why is he speaking up only now to silence the critics who’ve said as nonexecutive chairman he should be held responsible for the mess at Steinhoff?
“I was following advice. It’s a complicated matter and everyone knows an investigation is in progress,” Christo explains.
Since his resignation Markus (57) has been keeping a low profile. Christo says he hasn’t seen him or had any contact.
But the beleaguered former accountant will have to surface some time, he maintains. “Whether he’s guilty or not, he can’t just disappear forever.”
CHRISTO met Markus when he was a 21-year-old auditor’s clerk working at a company that did the books of one of Christo’s enterprises. Twenty years later their paths crossed again during a hunting trip with German businessman Bruno Steinhoff, founder of Steinhoff.
“He’s a charming man – good company, intelligent. Markus was one of the hardest-working people I’ve met in my life. He had unbelievable energy and put in 18 hours a day, seven days a week. I never had any inkling he might have
been dishonest.”
Christo says his relationship with Markus was mainly professional – not like the close friendship he’s had with Whitey Basson, former executive head of Shoprite Checkers.
There were rumours Whitey (72) didn’t like Markus’ management style but Christo points out that in the business world you must be willing to take risks and trust people if you want big transactions to succeed.
“I’ve often been cheated but never by a blatant crook – I won’t knowingly do business with such a person.”
He says claims that he chose to take Markus under his wing ahead of his son, Jacob (37), are rubbish.
“Jacob doesn’t care about such talk because he knows it’s totally untrue.”
And to those who say it would’ve been impossible for Christo not to have known about the creative accountancy allegedly taking place at Steinhoff, he has this to say: “I don’t understand how people can say that. It drives me crazy. Has there ever been anyone in the world who saw that books are being cooked and then decided to invest in that company anyway?”
Wiese admits the fallout from the scandal has caused him sleepless nights. His daughter, Clare (35), also opened up to us about the impact it had on the family when the news broke.
“We were at Yzerfontein [on the West Coast] where our family have been spending summer holidays together all these years. It definitely wasn’t an easy time because instead of focusing on Christmas my dad had to spend long hours, day after day, at the office dealing with one crisis after the next.”
A close friend reveals that while Christo tried to be stoic it was a bitter blow in the beginning. “I was actually shocked to see how tired he looked. I think it was disappointment more than the financial setback that affected him because he’s always seeing the good in people.”
Just three days after the scandal broke Christo and wife Caro celebrated the birth of their first grandchild, Storm – daughter of Jacob and his wife, Ty. The baby was a welcome relief amid the drama.
His biggest regret is that this disaster has hit him in his twilight years. “I’m no longer interested in the type of fights and debates I have to listen to. I don’t feel like it. I’d rather play with my grandchild and enjoy my friends and family,” he says.
If he could, what would he have done differently? “I don’t know,” he says. “People ask me, ‘Why didn’t you do this, why didn’t you do that?’ ”
It would’ve been better if Christo’s path had never crossed Bruno’s. But that’s the benefit of hindsight – one of the few luxuries the billionaire didn’t have back in 2006 when he got to know Markus. Christo, who grew up in Upington in the Northern Cape, is the epitome of the selfmade businessman. After starting out as a lawyer he worked as a director at Pep Stores, a small family business which grew exponentially under his leadership.
With Christo at the helm the Pepkor group acquired many more businesses, including Stuttafords, Cashbuild, Checkers and Ackermans. In 1979 he bought a small eight-store Western Cape grocer named Shoprite. This was the start of what would become Africa’s biggest supermarket group. Three years ago Christo sank most of his fortune – R63 billion – into Steinhoff. With a more than 21% stake in the company he was the largest shareholder – and so in the fallout he’s become the biggest loser. There’s speculation the scandal might end up costing him as much as 60% of his fortune. Keen to recover some of the money, the mogul recently sued for a dizzying R59 billion, possibly the biggest suit of its kind in SA. Dawie Roodt, chief economist of Efficient Group, says although Christo is fighting tooth and nail he doubts it will be possible for the tycoon to recoup his losses. “He’s managed to pull a rabbit out of a hat on several other occasions but I can’t see it happening this time. The extent of the damage might be just too big.” S
‘Why would anyone who saw that books are being cooked then invest in that company?’