By Alec Hogg

Here’s your Biznews Flash Briefing:

• While South Africans went peacefully to the polls yesterday in the country’s sixth free and fair national election, the world got even gloomier for former Steinhoff kingpin Markus Jooste. Long delayed financial results for the year to end September 2017, released late on Tuesday, revealed that Jooste voted himself R30m bonuses which he banked just months before the group’s December 2017 scandal burst. In March 2017, the disgraced businessman awarded himself a €500,000 bonus without board approval; and a further €1.6m on May 31, just six months before Jooste left the company. This cash was channelled through Steinhoff’s European unit where, over a period from 2009 to 2017, compliant German auditors allowed Jooste and close confidantes to inflate the group’s stated profits by almost R100bn.
• Steinhoff’s restated financial results were dire, causing a stock which lost over 90% from its peak to decline even further. After an initial uptick at the opening of trading in Frankfurt yesterday, the share price dropped from 12 to 11 Euro cents suggesting a similar 6% decline is on the cards when trading in Steinhoff shares re-opens on the JSE this morning. The company is setting all kinds of unfortunate South African records. It reported an astonishing R65bn net loss for the year to end September 2017, three quarters of this due to a substantial write down in its total assets. The company also disclosed that legal claims of R100bn have been lodged against the group, roughly half of which is by former chairman Christo Wiese who wants compensation for the fraudulently inflated shares he received in exchange for injecting the Pepkor Group into Steinhoff in November 2014.
• Adding to Jooste’s woes was the release on Tuesday of a dynamite report into horseracing by the Public Protector. The former Steinhoff CEO and close associates effectively controlled the sport for much of the period where the report claims abuses were perpetrated. The Public Protector has asked president Cyril Ramaphosa to urgently appoint a unit to investigate the “unlawful appropriation of public money and property” during the corporatisation of horseracing when JSE-listed Phumelela was established and subsequent to that when Jooste and Co. ruled the roost. The report also requests SA’s head of state to direct urgent remedial action including establishing an independent statutory body to serve as a regulator for the industry; withdrawing from Phumelela the bookmaker’s levy; and recovering a grant given to the company by the Gauteng province to erect grooms quarters that were never built. Phumelela issued a statement late on Tuesday to say the Public Protector’s report is reviewable and that its options are being considered. Its share price dropped 4% to a fresh 15 year low of 645c.
• The South African stock market gave up 1% on Tuesday led lower by heavyweight Naspers – off 1.6% – and most of the major retailing stocks. Walmart subsidiary Massmart, which parted ways with its CEO on Monday, lost another 4%, taking the past year’s share price decline to almost 50%. Truworths, TFG and Mr Price each gave up around 3%. Pick n Pay, however, bucked the trend with its shares rising 2.5% as the stock’s re-rating continued in the wake of recently released results for the year to end February where turnover rose 10%, pre-tax profit was up 31% and the annual dividend was raised 22%.