Jooste will have to confess if he wants my forgiveness, says Wiese

Retail tycoon Christo Wiese, who took a serious beating on Steinhoff International, will not consider forgiving former CEO Markus Jooste unless he admits his wrongdoing.

Wiese who had R59bn invested in Steinhoff, ended up with a settlement of R8bn after the Steinhoff share price fell 95% when enormous fraud was admitted in December 2017.

“When he owns up to what he has done, how many lives he destroyed, how many people feel grossly betrayed ... if he owns up, if he stops playing games to stay out of jail ... I will consider forgiving him,” Wiese said on 702 radio on Thursday.

Wiese, once one of SA’S richest men with a fortune accumulated from building Pep Stores and Shoprite into the companies they are today, said he had “no doubt” Jooste would go to prison because “money always leaves a trail”.

Shareholders lost more than R200bn. In the first move against him by authorities, the Reserve Bank last month seized more than R1.4bn in assets, incuding his Hermanus home, Lanzerac wine farm in Stellenbosch, five vehicles, and R100m in art and jewellery assets.

This relates only to suspected exchange control contraventions, not R106bn fraud in transactions that duped many pension funds and investors.

Jooste has not yet been charged by the NPA, or the German financial authorities.

“Obviously, he was a clever schemer. He had colleagues, particularly in Europe, helping him and he constructed this over a long period,” Wiese said. “It’s not only business people, including myself, that he managed to defraud,” he said, adding Jooste fooled internal auditors at Steinhoff, auditors around the world, the statutory auditors, auditing firm Deloitte and the Reserve Bank.

I will only consider forgiving him when he owns up