Christo Wiese – Wikipedia

Christoffel H. Wiese (Upington, September 10, 1941) is a South African entrepreneur who made luck in retail consumption until he was one of the richest men in South Africa ^[first] To then be involved in the scandal of the giant’s rigged accounts Steinhoff International Holdings.

Christoffel Wiese ^[2] (normally called Christo Wiese) he studied at the Paarl Boys High School in the western head region in South Africa, ^[3] So he graduated in Law from the University of Starenbosch.

After the university, Wiese practiced law for a few years before entering as executive director of Pepkor, the clothing chain that his parents helped to found in 1965 ^{[4] [5]} until you have control with a 44%participation. ^[6] He then acquired for 1 million Rand (equivalent to 122,000 USD) Shoprite, a chain of eight supermarkets in Cape Town. He made it a multimiliardaria activity thanks also to various acquisitions and expansion strategies carried out in the first thirty years.

After detecting the Senta distributor, Wiese began to expand his activity in new franchising locations for the Shoprite department stores. ^[7] He also purchased from a South African company of beers in difficulty ok bazaars for a rand in 1997, reaching 157 supermarkets and 146 furniture stores and creating jobs in the area. ^[7] In 2011, Wiese’s Shoprite shops were considered to be the sixth favorite brand in South Africa. ^[7] In addition to Shoprite, Wiese has also managed to own more than 1,200 company stores under various names. ^[8] Shoprite shares, listed on the Johannesburg stock exchange, increased by 50% on the South African stock market from March 2011 to March 2012 ^[first] While Wiese has made a profit of 1.5 billion dollars. Operating in sectors such as finance, consumer goods, banks, fashion, properties, retail, it has become one of the ten richest men in South Africa. ^[6] It also has various properties including a private hunting reserve in the Kalahari desert and the prestigious wine producer, Lourensford Summer. ^[first]

In 2014 Christo Weise sold Pepkor to Bruno Steinhoff, owner of the Steinhoff International, a conglomerate listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and specialized in the sale of furniture, founded in Germany and then moved for the lowest costs to Johannesburg, through a purchase and sale operation in actions and cash. At the end of the operation, a new company was born always called Steinhoff International Holdings based in Amsterdam and in which Wiese is the president and the single major shareholder with 40% of the capital while Bruno Steinhoff went down to 5%. At the time Wiese had a net assets assessed in 6.8 billion dollars. ^[9]

In April 2015 Wieste purchased, through his investment company, Brait, 80% of Virgin Group for 682 million pounds and thus evaluating the activity 1.3 billion of pounds, including debt. The company will continue to operate with the Virgin Active brand. ^[ten]

In 2017, the accounting scandal on Steinhoff International’s budgets since 2009 exploded. Wiese resigned that year from the position of president but suffered a strong financial loss when the price of the shares collapsed. In September 2017 his assets was still assessed 5.1 billion, ^[11] In December 2017 the assets had fallen to 742 million from over 6 billion of just three years earlier. ^{[twelfth] [9]} In March 2019 he announced that he was making a 4 billion dollar complaint against Steinhoff.

Wiese is married, lives in Cape Town and has three children. ^[first]

Wiese had to face a legal battle to recover 1 million dollars who transported while embarked on a flight from Great Britain to Luxembourg in 2009. This amount was confiscated by customs officials since the sum was in his luggage in cash and collected in elastic bands . ^[13]

In August 2012, Wiese had problems with the South African tax authorities (Sars) for backward taxes. ^{[14] [15]}