Big mistakes
In what could turn out to be possibly one of the biggest failures in the JSE’s recent history, previously high-flying Steinhoff was rocked by an accounting scandal which shook the company to its core.
The investigation is only just beginning, and CEO Markus Jooste has already handed in his resignation admitting to what he called big mistakes.
The question is, where does this leave investors who had their retirement investments heavily invested into Steinhoff?
The road to here
According to a report on Fin24.com, German business magazine Manager Magazin reported in August this year that Jooste was among four employees being investigated by German prosecutors in connection with a 2015 case tied to possible accounting fraud.
The article added that Steinhoff's share price took a beating then, but that decrease was nowhere near as bloody as its precipitous decline on Wednesday. The stock collapsed after Steinhoff announced that it had approached PwC to launch an independent investigation into accounting irregularities. The article added that Christo Wiese would step in as Executive Chairperson in the interim following Markus's resignation.
Facts are hard to come by
This is obviously a big shock and has left investors worried about how their investments will perform in an already volatile environment where alpha is very hard to come by. FAnews spoke to Wayne McCurrie, a Portfolio Manager from Ashburton Investments, to find out their views on where investors can go from here.
“There is currently a lot of speculation in the market with regards to Steinhoff. At the moment, there are very few hard facts about the issue. All that we know at the moment is that there are accounting irregularities and that their auditors currently won’t sign off on any of their accounts,” said McCurrie.
Further to that, it can be confirmed that as of 7 December, Steinhoff was unable to the validate how they lost €6 billion worth of assets which they later stated that they were unable to recover.
The issue of contention
The major problem from Steinhoff comes from a previous joint venture (JV) partner in the Netherlands who is currently suing Steinhoff for apparent irregularities. McCurrie points out that the major issue that will affect the Steinhoff case going forward is if this scandal relates to an issue of ownership of an asset or the valuation of the asset.
“If it is an issue of ownership, then the matter is between Steinhoff and the Dutch JV partner over who own what portion of the company. However, if it is a dispute over the valuation of the asset, the problems for Steinhoff could grow,” said McCurrie.
He added that we don’t know how much losses Steinhoff will face, but it is safe to say that it will be significant because the €6 billion is a first take on the losses. There are still legal implications to follow which would probably involve some form of fine or penalty.
What happens to investors?
McCurrie points out that the issue of what happens with investors depends on whether they are invested in Steinhoff in their personal capacity or through a retirement fund.
“Retirement funds have not been hit too significantly. Typically, their holdings in Steinhoff would be between 3% and 5%; so there are other avenues to recover lost ground. However, there may be investors who are invested in Steinhoff in their personal capacity, these investors lost significantly. Let’s say a person invested 60% of their assets in Steinhoff, they lost 90% of whatever that 60% was,” said McCurrie.
McCurrie said that it is difficult to say whether the losses in Steinhoff is significant to sell off all assets that they hold in the company. “However, if a personal investor has more than 50% of their assets in Steinhoff, they should sell at least half of these assets so that they can mitigate their risk,” said McCurrie.
Editor’s Thoughts:
A lot of the news around the Steinhoff scandal is conjecture at the moment. However, there will be more news surrounding this surfacing in the coming weeks. Investors should be prudent, be aware of the situation and make investment decisions based on facts and not conjecture. Please comment below, interact with us on Twitter at @fanews_online or email me your thoughts [email protected].
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