Steinhoff names Luhabe for board

THE appointment of Wendy Luhabe to the Steinhoff Africa Retail (Star) board is the latest of several board changes as it battles fallout from the controversy surrounding its controlling shareholder, Steinhoff International.

Luhabe, a major force in the corporate community during the mid-90s, has adopted a lower profile in recent years. Her appointment to the Star board is effective from January 1 2019.

Luhabe joins a board dominated by white Afrikaans men. The two notable exceptions are chair Jayendra Naidoo and Heather Sonn. Naidoo is founder of the Lancaster group, which secured funding from the PIC to take a 9% stake in Star and become its BEE shareholder. Sonn, appointed to the Star board as an independent non-executive director in August 2017, chairs Steinhoff. Luhabe’s directorships include African Leadership University, the Abraaj Group and the Swiss-based International Institute for Management Development. High-profile previous positions include chairing Vodacom for six years to 2006 and chairing the IDC for 10 years to 2009. She was a founding director of Wiphold, an early BEE group that focused on creating business opportunities for women.

Naidoo said: “Wendy has made a huge impact in the business community in SA. We are thrilled.”

Luhabe’s appointment is the 10th Star board change since the Steinhoff collapse was triggered by reference to “accounting irregularities” in December. Four directors, including Vusi Khanyile, have resigned, with Markus Jooste the first to depart. Pieter Erasmus, a former CEO of Pepkor, is due to rejoin the board in October. The group’s share price has been hit by its association with Steinhoff and concerns about the impact of third-party guarantees, legal claims and offbalance sheet entities.

● Steinhoff has won more creditor support to give it time to restructure debts totalling à9-billion (R140billion). It said late yesterday that holders of 75%, 83% and 75% of three convertible bonds totalling à2.7billion had agreed to a debt standstill agreement.

Creditors have agreed not to enforce their rights until the end of the month to allow Steinhoff time to clinch a debt restructuring agreement with its lenders.

Steinhoff has said all its debt would be reinstated at par and be given a common maturity date of three years from the completion of the restructuring agreement. —