Citizen reporter
Streaming
Platform: Showmax, every Thursday until 6 October.
Info: Steinheist, a new Showmax Original true crime documentary series about the biggest corporate scam in South African history, is now streaming, with new episodes. Steinheist is made by Idea Candy, the producers of Devilsdorp,
the record-breaking Showmax Original that won Best Made for TV Documentary at the 2022 South African Film and Television Awards (Saftas). Once billed as “the Ikea of Africa,” Steinhoff employed over 130 000 people on over 40 brands across four continents. Steinhoff-owned companies every South African will know include giants like Ackermans, Incredible Connection, Morkels, Pennypinchers, PEP, Russells, Tekkie Town, and Timbercity.
On 5 December 2017, CEO Markus Jooste resigned amid an investigation into accounting irregularities, and Steinhoff’s share price plunged by 90% in a week.
This wiped over R200 billion off Johannesburg’s stock exchange, the JSE – and off ordinary South Africans’ pensions and investments.
As News24’s assistant editor, Pieter du Toit, author of The Stellenbosch Mafia, says: “You don’t think that a company of that size and that repute can crash so quickly.” Early reviews for
Steinheist are glowing.
Rapport’s Leon van Nierop calls it “excellent”, while Business Day’s
Tymon Smith hails it as “a damning indictment of greed and narcissism”.