On 5 December 2017 the Steinhoff group was still worth R199 billion. 24 hours later more than R160 billion of this fortune was wiped out. The Steinhoff empire, that took 20 years to build into an international business giant, had crumbled overnight. Markus Jooste, Steinhoff’s flashy CEO, resigned via sms and has since been fleeing an avalanche of scandals and accusations: luxury homes for a blonde mistress, allegations of fraud, racing horses and unparalleled extravagance, a lavish, black Jaguar for an old university residence…What exactly happened here? Who knew what? What is Steinhoff, who is Markus Jooste and what does it all have to do with the so called Stellenbosch mafia? Where does business tycoon Christo Wiese, Shoprite and Pepkor fit in and where is the...
James-Brent Styan is a former journalist and a bestselling author. His first book, written in 2015, exposed the state of Eskom and warned about the future of load shedding in South Africa. His 2018 exposé, Steinhoff: Inside SA’s Biggest Corporate Crash, was a number-one bestseller in both English and Afrikaans. The Dirty Secrets of the Rich and Powerful is his fifth non-fiction title.
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