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More than $14 billion of shareholder value has been wiped off
Steinhoff over the last three weeks after the owner of Mattress
Firm and Conforama discovered what it called accounting
irregularities and parted company with its chief executive.
The 90 percent collapse hit Wiese's wealth -- estimated by
Forbes magazine to have dropped to below $1 billion -- the
hardest as he is the largest Steinhoff shareholder with a stake
of about 20 percent.
Exchange filings showed Wiese sold 5 million shares at an
average price of 221.5 rand each in Shoprite, a 128 billion rand
($10.1 billion) company in which he owns about 17 percent stake
and is chairman.
That brings the money he has raised since Dec. 14 from the sale
of Shoprite stock to 3.3 billion rand ($260 million). It is
unclear what he would be using the money for and his office did
not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Wiese borrowed 1.6 billion euros ($1.9 billion) to buy
additional Steinhoff shares in September 2016, pledging 3.2
billion euros of his existing holding as security to the
investment banks that lent the money.
Shares in Steinhoff dropped a further 11 percent on Thursday,
extending the decline to the second day after the company said
some lenders have started restricting access to credit lines.
Wiese was one of the early directors of a budget retailer Pepkor,
which was co-founded by his parents in 1960 in Upington on the
southern edges of the Kalahari desert.
He is best known for transforming Shoprite from just six shops
in the 1970s to hundreds of stores across Africa.
(Reporting by Tiisetso Motsoeneng; Editing by Keith Weir)
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