Christo Wiese: The three lessons I learnt from Steinhoff

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It’s no secret that there is bad blood between Richemont’s founder Johann Rupert and Shoprite’s former chair Christo Wiese.

But Wiese’s fall from grace since 2017 has been swift and sharp: he’d taken a large bet on Markus Jooste and Steinhoff, and the revelation of immense fraud at the retailer meant Wiese’s own personal stake in the company plunged by R59bn when Steinhoff crashed.

Wiese’s single-minded desire to be the richest man in SA caught up with him, according to Rupert.

"I actually feel sorry for him," said Rupert. "He wanted to be the richest and the biggest, that’s what drove him … He was never afraid of taking on debt or [being] aggressive [in his business]. I wouldn’t have been sorry for him if he was 55, but now he’s in his late 70s."

Wiese turns 80 this year, and though he is still a director of Shoprite, he has stepped down as chair, signalling a decision to dial back his corporate involvement.

When I reached Wiese in December 2020 and told him of Rupert’s comments, he was incredulous — and rather offended.

But he became gracious and affable when he started talking, appearing every bit the gentleman who often quietly slips into the back of the small Dutch Reformed Church in Camps Bay, not far from his home in Clifton.

"Clearly, Rupert knows more about my finances than anyone else!" he laughed.

"I cannot imagine the audacity of someone deigning to comment on someone else’s finances. Luckily, by the grace of God, I manage my own finances, thank you very much."

While admitting that his net worth after the Steinhoff debacle had fallen to around a fifth of what it had been before, he didn’t want to delve into specifics — such as Rupert’s claims about his debt levels.

But he did say he was nowhere near insolvency, and that he had never taken money out of SA that he couldn’t bring back. "I might not be worth what I was before Steinhoff, but it’s still a heck of a lot," he said.

Wiese said he maintained an excellent relationship with banks and creditors. Brait, the investment company which owns Virgin Active — of which Wiese owns 26.7% — launched a rights issue in 2019 in which he personally signed off a cheque for R1bn.

"It is ludicrous to assert anything else; I am very far from being in trouble."

Still, if Wiese has accepted his losses, it clearly hasn’t been easy.

"It’s hard to see what you’ve built over 50 years just destroyed — a humble business started in Upington, built by your parents, friends and family, and you, a business that did things in communities, that uplifted people, put children through school, and made doctors and engineers out of children whose parents worked there," he says. "And it now belongs to hedge fund managers in New York and Europe who don’t know anything about a Pep store. R60bn is gone. What did Jooste gain from this? Nothing."

He confirmed that he hasn’t heard from Jooste since December 5 2017 — the day the Steinhoff news broke, and the retailer’s share price plunged 56%.

"There’s been nothing. But not only with me — there’s been no contact with people he worked closely [with] for more than 20 years, like Danie van der Merwe [Steinhoff’s COO at the time] and Bruno Steinhoff [the company’s founder]. Bruno and I speak to each other once or twice a year, and he’s now an old man. And I ask him, ‘Bruno, have you heard anything?’ Nothing. [Jooste] hasn’t seen fit just to call these people and say sorry," he said.

Wiese repeated, as he often does, that he would never have invested in Steinhoff had he known what was really going on there. Just before Steinhoff’s crash, Wiese not only owned 21% of the company, he was also its chair.

He acknowledged that many people invested in Steinhoff because he invested — and he feels bad about that. But then, many people invested millions before he did.

"And if they didn’t know, why would I have? Where were the banks, the regulators, the fund managers, the auditors? Jooste was brazen; he was hiding in plain sight. People saying I knew are talking rubbish. They should look at the facts," he said.

Having had some time to reflect on the enormous losses he suffered at the hands of Jooste, Wiese was philosophical about the matter. It’s as if he has really attained some measure of peace about the whole debacle.

He has learnt three lessons from it all, he told me. "One, never mourn money. You don’t mourn money; you mourn people. And I still have wonderful and lovely people around me. Two, count your blessings every single day … I could have lost everything. I didn’t, and I’m thankful for that. And three, don’t become bitter, because no one likes a bitter old man."

Wiese might be scaling back his dealings, but he is by no means retired.

He still runs a number of companies, and the young people he works with keep him on his toes, he said.

"I don’t play golf or play with horses. I enjoy hunting and clay-pigeon shooting. But I enjoy working," he said. It’s a not-so-subtle dig at the golf-loving and horse-breeding Rupert.

*This is an edited excerpt from the updated version of The Stellenbosch Mafia, which went on sale this month