CFO La Grange steps down
Steinhoff stages recovery
STEINHOFF International continued to be plagued by resignations from its board with Ben la Grange the latest to step down from his role as chief financial officer (CFO).
La Grange’s resignation has not negatively impacted the company’s share price as it continued to trade higher on the JSE on Friday. His resignation on Thursday was one of a few resignations to hit the retailer after it admitted to accounting irregularities dating back to December 2015, which also led to the delay of publishing of its financial results for the year to September.
In his place Steinhoff named Philip Dieperink as his successor in an acting CFO capacity pending formal appointment to the management board of the company.
Dieperink has been with the group for almost 18 years and is the current CFO of Steinhoff UK.
La Grange’s departure follows on the heels of high-profile resignations which include former chief executive Markus Jooste and Christo Wiese.
Wiese stepped in as interim executive chairman, but resigned a few days later with the company stating that he had offered to step down to reinforce independent governance of the company.
The group’s supervisory board accepted his resignation “to address any possible conflict of interest that may exist”, Steinhoff said.
The December resignations led to the group losing more than $10 billion (R123.2bn) in market capitalisation, but the stock has since rallied, rising last week as high as R9.57 a share, up from R4.75 at the beginning of the week. It closed the week at R8.80.
In explaining La Grange’s resignation, the group said he had stepped down to take up a new role in the company.
“The current CFO, Ben la Grange, has today stepped down as CFO and as a member of the management board to focus on the preservation and procurement of liquidity in the group, in addition to the finalisation of the company’s audited 2017 consolidated financial statements and comparative statements,” the group said.
Steinhoff has tried to reassure investors and lenders alike that it is addressing its problems by appointing and confirming the strengthening of the management board through Danie van der Merwe as acting chief executive and the nominations of Alexandre Nodale as deputy chief executive and Louis du Preez as commercial director in December.
La Grange, who also stepped down as chief executive of Steinhoff Retail Africa (STAR) in December, was not implicated in the group’s scandal.
Since the decline, Steinhoff met with its lenders last month and has approached PwC to perform an independent investigation.
In an effort to return some liquidity into its balance sheet, Steinhoff also sold a portion of its stake in the PSG Group for $400 million and is expecting to receive $1.2bn from STAR as a debt repayment. Steinhoff owns a 78 percent stake in STAR.
Also last week, Steinhoff received a major boost when its subsidiary Pepkor Europe announced that it had managed to raise a £180m (about R3bn) loan facility from a US hedge fund in order to reduce dependence on it.