{"id":61504,"date":"2024-02-22T11:27:57","date_gmt":"2024-02-22T11:27:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/jean-pierre-verster-reveals-how-he-knew-steinhoff-was-in-trouble"},"modified":"2024-02-22T11:52:18","modified_gmt":"2024-02-22T11:52:18","slug":"jean-pierre-verster-reveals-how-he-knew-steinhoff-was-in-trouble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/jean-pierre-verster-reveals-how-he-knew-steinhoff-was-in-trouble","title":{"rendered":"Jean Pierre Verster reveals how he knew Steinhoff was in trouble"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – South-Africa. <\/strong><\/span>Protea Capital Management founder and CEO Jean Pierre Verster said discovering off-balance-sheet entities owned by associates of Markus Jooste confirmed the company was in trouble.<\/p>\n

Verster, who manages his own hedge funds at Protea Capital Management, is well known for predicting the collapse of Steinhoff and African Bank.<\/p>\n

By accurately predicting problems at these companies and shorting their shares, Verster helped generate good returns for his clients.<\/p>\n

In hindsight, it seems logical that Steinhoff was a house of cards. However, at the time, it was a JSE darling with strong share price growth.<\/p>\n

The reason it was so challenging to see problems at Steinhoff was that you had to combine numerous issues and look past the prevailing narrative.<\/p>\n

For example, Steinhoff made many acquisitions, making it difficult to track its financial performance and growth. It typically provided proforma numbers, which are prone to significant adjustments.<\/p>\n

It was also challenging to track the company\u2019s debt. Steinhoff\u2019s gross debt was R100 billion, and it was unclear how well it could service this debt through its operations.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Smart Money with Alishia Seckam, Verster said there were many rumours surrounding problems at Steinhoff.<\/p>\n

However, despite these rumours, many analysts continued to believe Steinhoff was a great company and pumped money into the share.<\/p>\n

Verster, in comparison, started to investigate these rumours. It included looking at numerous Steinhoff subsidiaries in Austria and Switzerland.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I looked at these subsidiaries, I saw weird other owners. However, these other owners were always owned by friends and associates of Markus Jooste,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt did not make sense. I asked Steinhoff about the issue, but they could not give a good answer. That is when I realised there were off-balance-sheet entities.\u201d<\/p>\n

He explained that he could not predict exactly when Steinhoff would run into serious problems or collapse.<\/p>\n

However, when Steinhoff collapsed, Verster knew it happened because of a hole in the balance sheet. \u201cThey round-tripped assets and income,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was able to anticipate the problems because of the off-balance-sheet entities I found by spending hours looking for the details inside the Steinhoff conglomerate.\u201d<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About South-Africa<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – South-Africa. Protea Capital Management founder and CEO Jean Pierre Verster said discovering off-balance-sheet entities owned by associates of Markus Jooste confirmed the company was in trouble. Verster, who manages his own hedge funds at Protea Capital Management, is well known for predicting the collapse of Steinhoff and African Bank. By accurately predicting problems […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":61503,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5],"tags":[274,315,275],"class_list":["post-61504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-economy","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-south-africa","tag-south-africa-2"],"yoast_head":"\nJean Pierre Verster reveals how he knew Steinhoff was in trouble - South Africa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Protea Capital Management founder and CEO Jean Pierre Verster said discovering off-balance-sheet entities owned by assoc ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/jean-pierre-verster-reveals-how-he-knew-steinhoff-was-in-trouble\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jean Pierre Verster reveals how he knew Steinhoff was in trouble\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Protea Capital Management founder and CEO Jean Pierre Verster said discovering off-balance-sheet entities owned by assoc ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/jean-pierre-verster-reveals-how-he-knew-steinhoff-was-in-trouble\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"South Africa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-02-22T11:27:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-02-22T11:52:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/sites\/31\/2024\/02\/sm_1708590104.06898.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"432\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/jean-pierre-verster-reveals-how-he-knew-steinhoff-was-in-trouble#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/jean-pierre-verster-reveals-how-he-knew-steinhoff-was-in-trouble\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Jean Pierre Verster reveals how he knew Steinhoff was in trouble\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-02-22T11:27:57+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-02-22T11:52:18+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/jean-pierre-verster-reveals-how-he-knew-steinhoff-was-in-trouble\"},\"wordCount\":375,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/jean-pierre-verster-reveals-how-he-knew-steinhoff-was-in-trouble#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/sites\/31\/2024\/02\/sm_1708590104.06898.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-South-Africa\",\"South-Africa\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"economy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/jean-pierre-verster-reveals-how-he-knew-steinhoff-was-in-trouble#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/jean-pierre-verster-reveals-how-he-knew-steinhoff-was-in-trouble\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/jean-pierre-verster-reveals-how-he-knew-steinhoff-was-in-trouble\",\"name\":\"Jean Pierre Verster reveals how he knew Steinhoff was in trouble - 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