Steinhoff Bought Land Linked to Executives at Inflated Price
- Plantations sold to Steinhoff at five times earlier value
- Jooste’s Mayfair Speculators received interest-free loans
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A company linked to executives of Steinhoff International Holdings NV bought South African forestry plantations in 2001 and then sold them to the retailer three years later for more than five times their original value, documents show.
Steinhoff, which plunged 96 percent after disclosing accounting irregularities and Chief Executive Officer Markus Jooste quit in December, commissioned PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP to investigate its finances and has said restatements may have to go back to at least 2015. The forestry deal is similar to car dealership transactions Steinhoff carried out in 2007 where it bought properties including in Johannesburg from companies linked to Jooste at a multiple of their initial value.