Banker, farm workers lose R1bn on Steinhoff
Value of investment by Tokara BEE Trust and employees’ trust drops to R34.4m from R714m
One of SA’s most respected bankers, GT Ferreira, who cofounded FirstRand with Paul Harris and Laurie Dippenaar, has seen more than R1bn of his wealth wiped out by the collapse of Steinhoff as his own direct investment in the retail group has crashed to a fraction of its initial value.
In addition, workers on his wine farm, Tokara, who were invested in Steinhoff have seen that investment shrink to just a few million rand.
Ferreira bought about 5.96million shares in Steinhoff in July 2015, just four months before the group transferred its primary listing from the JSE to the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.
In July 2015, Steinhoff was trading at about R78 a share, putting a value of R460m on Ferreira’s investment. The South African share register reveals that Ferreira still holds 5.96-million Steinhoff shares. They are now worth R18m.
In addition, the share register reveals that an entity called the Tokara BEE Trust and an entity called Tokara Employees Trust had 5.2-million and 4.9-million shares, respectively, in Steinhoff at the end of November 2017. Tokara is the name of Ferreira’s wine estate, which is just outside Stellenbosch. The Tokara Workers Trust was set up by Ferreira shortly after he bought the farm in 1994.
The farm’s website says the trust was set up “for the entire workforce to look after their future individual needs”. A third entity called Arakot owned 1.4million Steinhoff shares.
The total value of Tokara shares ahead of the December collapse was R714m. They are now worth R34.4m. The collapse of Steinhoff has reduced the Ferreira/Tokara investment to R52m from R1.17bn.
The link with Ferreira was highlighted after last week’s announcement that Steinhoff’s European property portfolio could be overstated by as much as 50%. The news caused jitters among shareholders in RMB Holdings (RMH), which recently acquired a 44% stake in Steinhoff-aligned Atterbury Europe.
The announcement has shone a light on Steinhoff’s property interests, which, through Atterbury, appear to connect key players in the South African financial community.
In addition to Ferreira’s RMH, the Atterbury-aligned players include former head of Sanlam Investment Management and
joint CEO of African Rainbow Capital Johan van der Merwe; one of the founding shareholders of Coronation, Thys du Toit; and Allen Swiegers, who was a partner with Deloitte for 33 years until 2016.
Du Toit was previously CEO of Coronation Fund Managers, which had a significant exposure to Steinhoff and which has nominated two appointees to the Steinhoff supervisory board.
Swiegers was not only a partner at Steinhoff’s audit firm but is chairman of the board of Atterbury Property Fund and a nonexecutive director of Steinhoff Retail Africa.
Van der Merwe’s joint CEO at African Rainbow Capital is Johan van Zyl, who was former CEO of Sanlam and was appointed to the Steinhoff supervisory board in 2016. Sanlam was a significant investor in Steinhoff.
Ferreira was chairman of RMH its from inception in 2010 until his retirement at the end of March 2018. On Friday, Herman Bosman, CEO of RMH, said that RMH subscribed for a 43.8% shareholding in Atterbury Europe in January 2018.
“This was a natural extension of the partnership with the Atterbury group and its founder, Louis van de Watt, as RMH has a 27.5% shareholding in Atterbury Property Holdings,” he said.
Until December 2017 Steinhoff was a 50% shareholder in Atterbury Europe. In December, shortly after news of accounting irregularities and the collapse of the Steinhoff share price, the Steinhoff stake was repurchased by Atterbury Europe.
One analyst said that by subscribing for the shares it appears that RMH effectively funded the repurchase of the Atterbury Europe stake from Steinhoff. He said that from the perspective of RMH shareholders it would have made more sense to wait until Steinhoff was forced to sell the property investment at a possible discount.
Although Steinhoff was a 50% shareholder in Atterbury Europe, Bosman said the property portfolio was acquired and developed by Atterbury CEO Louis van der Watt and the management team at Atterbury Europe. “It existed separately and independently of Steinhoff,” Bosman said.
Business Day was unable to contact Ferreira for comment.