Africa-Press – South-Africa. The SA Reserve Bank on Tuesday afternoon attached Markus Jooste’s mansion in Hermanus and the historic Lanzerac wine estate outside Stellenbosch.
On Thursday, the Western Cape High Court granted the SARB an application to attach all assets linked to Jooste, who is accused of having contravened South African foreign exchange regulations.
News24 understands that the bank attached his house in Voëlklip Hermanus and raided Lanzerac on Tuesday afternoon.
In possibly the largest corporate crash – and fraud – in South Africa’s history, Steinhoff investors have lost R200 billion since December 2017. Jooste is at the centre of accounting manipulation that near-imploded the group.
His wife Ingrid and son Michael Jooste are also respondents in the Reserve Bank case. Gary Harlow and Willem Adriaan du Plessis, as joint trustees of the Joostes’ Silveroak Trust, are also among the respondents.
The SA Reserve Bank was granted permission to attach assets in the Silveroak Trust, including art, worth almost R99 million and other financial assets worth R1.2 billion.
Ingrid Jooste’s cars – including a Lexus and a Kombi – must also be attached, according to the court order, along with Markus Jooste’s paintings, jewellery and firearms worth almost R800 000.
All the movable goods in their Hermanus house, as well as all the movable goods on the Lanzerac premises, are attached; and forensic experts seized computers and other equipment.
Jooste bought his home in Voëlklip, Hermanus, from the Rupert family. The 7 000m2 Hermanus property, which spans two plots in the seaside town, was valued at more than R81 million.
Lanzerac has close ties to Jooste.
The British businessman Malcolm King is the supposed owner of the estate, via a company called Pavilion Capital Investments, registered in the British Virgin Islands. King is known to be a friend and business associate of the former Steinhoff CEO.
But Steinhoff itself has argued in court that Jooste, not King, owns Pavilion. The wine estate has a complicated ownership structure, includes a number of companies registered in tax havens, companies with confusingly similar names, and companies that have undergone name changes. But according to Steinhoff, the chain of ownership eventually points, at least in part, to Jooste.
Last year, business magnate Christo Wiese also sued Jooste to get the hotel back.
In 2012, Wiese sold the wine farm, which includes a five-star hotel, to what was described as a “foreign consortium”. In return for Lanzerac wine estate and all its assets, Wiese and other plaintiffs received millions of Steinhoff shares, which have since fallen precipitously in value.
In court documents, Wiese states that Jooste pretended to be a mere representative for other investors, but it has since become clear he was behind the deal all along.
According to Wiese, he did not know at the time that Jooste had an interest in a company called Morpheus that bought Lanzerac. Morpheus was later renamed Lanzerac Estate Investments.
Lanzerac Estate Investments has previously had Malcom and Nicholas King, as well as Jooste’s son-in-law, Stefan Potgieter, as directors. Malcom King resigned his directorship in March this year, leaving his son Nicholas as its sole director.
Despite rumours among the Stellenbosch elite that Jooste was involved in Lanzerac behind the scenes, there was never any proof that the former Steinhoff boss actually owned a stake in either the farm or its hotel.
This was, in part, because Pavilion Capital is domiciled in the tax haven of the British Virgin Islands, and the notorious tax haven does not have a publicly accessible register of beneficial ownership for companies.
For More News And Analysis About South-Africa Follow Africa-Press
