By Janice Kew
Conforama future
Steinhoff remains in operation after a series of asset sales and a deal with creditors to skip payments on about €9bn ($10.1bn) of debt through 2021.
However, the company said Tuesday its Conforama business in France faces an uncertain future following lockdowns to contain the coronavirus, as it has been unable to secure a state-guaranteed loan for which it is eligible. Steinhoff is “exploring all possible options” for the unit, the company said.
Trading across the group as a whole “has been significantly better” than expected at the early stages of the pandemic, as stores benefited from pent-up demand, Steinhoff said. All subsidiaries, other than Conforama, have sufficient liquidity, the retailer added.
The Hawks, as the South African police unit investigating the Steinhoff collapse is known, have said they were only able to make serious headway with their investigations after being given full access to the PwC report, which was completed in March 2019. A year ago, the police said the probes had been fast-tracked and more people were being assigned to the job.
PwC uncovered €6.5bn of irregular transactions between Steinhoff and eight firms between 2009 and 2017. The deals, orchestrated over several years, enabled the owner of chains from the US to France to artificially boost profits and asset values, the report found.
Since releasing a 10-page summary last year, Steinhoff has limited access to the full document. It paid PwC at least €35m for the investigation and technical accounting support, according to its annual reports.