If you’re looking for insight into how the Stellenbosch set lives, the court papers filed in a heated spat between Markus Jooste’s rumoured one-time girlfriend, Berdine Odendaal, and the Reserve Bank are illuminating.
Though insiders talked of Odendaal’s presence long before Steinhoff’s 2017 nadir (“Ask Markus,” secretaries would whisper, when asked about the strikingly glamorous blonde arriving in her Ferrari at Steinhoff’s HQ), it was only after the crash that she was publicly outed.
Now, it turns out that it may actually have been Steinhoff that funded her champagne lifestyle.
Court papers obtained by Daily Maverick reveal that Odendaal first received money from Jooste’s company, Mayfair Speculators, way back in 2011 — a mammoth R6.5m transfer. And the cash kept coming. In all, Bank financial surveillance manager Andre Malherbe says in an affidavit, Mayfair transferred R60.5m to her.
“The Reserve Bank formed a suspicion that Odendaal has benefited from contraventions of the exchange control regulations in which Jooste and/or Mayfair Speculators were seemingly involved,” Malherbe says.
Odendaal’s ordeal with the Bank began in April 2021, when it obtained a court order to “attach” five properties registered in her name, cars, and bank accounts. The full list of her assets is jaw-dropping.
Take the supercars. In 2015, she splashed out R3.9m on a new Ferrari California T (Top Gear gushed: “The immaculate hair that’s likely to inhabit the California’s delicious cabin is unlikely to be ruffled”), and in 2016 she splurged R5m on a Bentley Bentayga. She already owned two cars bought in 2012: a Range Rover Sport (R1m) and a Mercedes G500 (R1.4m).
And that’s besides the six properties she owned at Val de Vie, the luxurious “residential polo estate” in Paarl, about 40 minutes from Stellenbosch, with its own wine cellar, a Jack Nicklaus signature golf course and a swimming school run by Olympic gold medallist Ryk Neethling. While three of those homes have been sold, she still lives in one, valued at R20m.
Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the Bank’s case is its contention that the money used to fund her lifestyle came originally from Steinhoff.
In a letter to Odendaal’s lawyers on July 8 2021, the Bank said Mayfair Speculators “lent” her money which came to Jooste because he “misappropriated funds from Steinhoff’s international operations”.
It says Jooste did this “by orally instructing the [Steinhoff] international group entities to effect transfers or make payments to Fihag Finance-und-Handels and Top Global Investments GmbH”, companies he apparently controlled. From there, the money was transferred to Mayfair Speculators, where it was “advanced to Ms Odendaal on the instruction of Mr Jooste”.
Much of this might not have emerged publicly had Odendaal not gone to court in February to have the attachment order of her accounts overturned
So, you ask, how come the Reserve Bank is acting in this case, rather than, say, the Hawks?
Well, on this point, the Bank says there are “reasonable grounds to suspect” Mayfair broke the rules when “declaring the underlying cause for payments that were received from abroad”.
Much of this might not have emerged publicly had Odendaal not gone to court in February to have the attachment order of her accounts overturned.
In the application, she argued she had a “clearly established right to the release of funds” to pay legal expenses. She also mentioned “my right to human dignity” and the right not to be “subjected to degrading treatment”.
They’re interesting claims, since the Bank had been releasing R150,000 to her every month from the “blocked accounts”, cash Odendaal claimed she needed for “necessary monthly expenses”.
Her breakdown of the R150,000 is intriguing. The largest amount was for “pony costs” of R70,000 for “stabling, transport, grooms, competition entries and veterinary expenses”, while there was another R10,000 “travelling costs” for “horse box rental, petrol and vehicles”.
Malherbe says this meant more than half her monthly expenses related to “her hobbies”, while she claimed “more than R15,000 per month for clothing and beauty treatments”.
The truth, he says, is that she’s far from destitute — partly since she’s staying in a R20m home at Val de Vie and had lent R3m to her brother, who is repaying her R52,000 a month.
Malherbe says while Odendaal describes herself as a businesswoman, “the nature of the businesses operated by her is unknown [and] she did not report any income from any ‘businesses’ to the Bank”.
Clearly, the Bank isn’t in the mood to cut her more slack. When she asked it to release R113,000 so she could pay her annual “equine insurance” bill for four horses, the Bank vetoed the request partly because she “has not previously disclosed any ownership of horses or ponies”. Where exactly are these horses, the bank asks, and why wasn’t this disclosed?
Pointedly, the Bank points out that her lawyers are the same team representing Jooste, and it “suspects that Odendaal’s legal fees are being funded by third parties, such as Jooste”.
This case might be a sideshow in the wider Steinhoff story but it opens an intriguing new front in the battle to follow the money siphoned out of the retailer.
If it turns out this was Steinhoff’s money being used to pay for polo ponies and supercars, it puts a far more sinister spin on what started out simply as salacious gossip.
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