Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa June/ July 2019 | Page 15

CHRISTO WIESE
‘I’ve been very fortunate, I’ve had wonderful colleagues over
the past 55 years. It appears that I made one very bad choice
and the only excuse I would offer is that I made that choice
in the best company: bankers, regulators, analysts, ratings
agencies,’ says Wiese.
‘None of them foresaw the problem which as it now appears
was there for over a decade. Wrongdoing had been going on,
driven essentially by one individual. I also accept: that’s how
life works, you don’t always get it right. I’ve had wonderful
colleagues who really built the businesses to the point where
we were the largest private sector employer in South Africa.’
‘Obviously one learns a lot of lessons. I think the primary
lesson is not to place that much reliance on all those
institutions that are out there meant to prevent things like
Steinhoff. Starting off with the auditors, but also the financial
institutions involved, the regulators and others”.
Criticism following Steinhoff ’s spectacular implosion
focused in large part on the company’s board and its role
in detecting its CEO Markus Jooste’s fraud. Wiese was
chairperson of the Steinhoff Supervisory Board for only
four board meetings (from May 2016 to December 2017).
Wiese hits back: ‘To people who say that the non-executive
directorships should have known, I ask: Why did it take PWC
with seven partners and a hundred clerks over 14 months to
work out what’s going on? Now you expect a non-executive
director who meets five times a year, is given a pack of
documents signed off by off the internal and external auditors,
to pick up that something is going on?’
According to Wiese, the South African business community
will ‘for sure’ see another massive scandal like this in the future.
‘Every time one of these frauds happens, people say: How
could people not know about it? And yet it happens time and
time again.’
As we finished up our interview with Wiese, Steinhoff
International still hadn’t posted their much-awaited 2017
results. It would only be released at midnight, before the
National Elections commanded the attention of the public.
The results showed total assets marked down to €17.5bn in
fiscal 2017, compared with a restated €21bn in 2016. The stock
has fallen by over 96% since the announcement of accounting
irregularities in 2017. Wiese lodged a R59-billion claim
against the company in April.
It’s been a turbulent two years for the risk-taking
businessman. His latest risk didn’t pay off, but according to
him, it won’t be his last business deal.
‘I’m going to keep doing what I’ve been doing. The greatest
joy for me is that I’ve been building businesses and if it wasn’t
for a fraudster, we could’ve employed over 350 000 people.’
Today Shoprite employs 145 000 people and Pepkor close
to 50 000.
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SA Real Estate Investor Magazine JUNE/JULY 2019
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