Steinhoff Group’s former audit executive Hein Odendaal, linked to the company’s accounting fraud case, was investigated in the scandal after being identified as one of the people who received “extraordinary remuneration”.
Odendaal turned himself in to the police on Friday and appeared at the Pretoria specialised commercial crimes court facing charges of fraud, manipulation of financial statements, failure to report fraudulent activities and racketeering.
He and the company’s subsidiary Steinhoff at Work MD Iwan Peter Schelbert joined Steinhoff’s former executive director Stephanus Grobler to face trial for the company’s downfall.
Odendaal and Schelbert were granted R150,000 bail each.
In a PwC audit report into Steinhoff’s fraud, Odendaal was listed among people who were investigated for receiving “extraordinary remuneration” and had a relationship with former CEO Markus Jooste.
According to the report, he was paid R12.5m in 2013 and by 2017 this had reached R22m.
Jooste, accused of orchestrating the fraud, was paid R53m in 2013 and R117m in 2017.
The value of the shares held by Odendaal at Steinhoff was R49m in 2017.
Jooste’s shares were worth R4bn and the company’s chairperson, Christo Wiese, had shares to the value of R59bn in the same period.
Odendaal worked at different divisions of Steinhoff from 2003 until 2018.
Despite earning millions, in his affidavit read in court he detailed owning one property in Randhart, Alberton, and a Mercedes-Benz.
A trustee for Roadbel Trust, he owns two holiday flats in Strand, Western Cape, and is also a 50% shareholder of a farm in Limpopo.
The state will follow the trail of documents and invoices in proving its case against Odendaal, Schelbert and Grobler, who were directors of Steinhoff at Work.
The three were involved in preparing the audit of annual financial statements for the company in December 2016, months before the company’s downfall.
The state alleges the three accused created documentation of transactions which supported fraudulent transactions used to inflate and falsify the annual financial statement of the Steinhoff Group.
Odendaal, as an audit executive, was investigated for a lack of disclosure of the company’s financial documents.
He was asked by PwC why contributions received by Steinhoff UK Holdings were not disclosed to the Steinhoff International Holdings audit committee and why the Deloitte report in August 2015 was excluded from the pack of documents that was provided to the audit committee.
“I do not believe I was responsible for informing the audit committee about operational results and contributions/rebates. The slightest insinuation that I might have been responsible to inform the audit committee is wrong,” Odendaal was quoted as having said.
Odendaal told the court he intends to plead not guilty to the charges against him. He said the state had not furnished his legal team with detailed charges.
Schelbert also intends to plead not guilty.
Schelbert and Odendaal resigned as MDs of Steinhoff at Work on the same day, March 29 2018.
Though Schelbert was not listed among people paid “extraordinary remuneration” in the report, the court heard on Friday he owned seven properties worth R37.3m in total.
These include three properties at Paarl’s upmarket Val de Vie estate, where other former Steinhoff executives live.
The PwC report probed invoices of millions paid to several companies by Steinhoff, some of which were signed by Schelbert as the MD of Steinhoff at Work.
Schelbert was responsible for preparing revenue statements for the company.
He communicated with former Steinhoff CFO Ben la Grange about some of the invoices, some of which were linked to Jooste’s instructions.
La Grange was sentenced last year to five years in jail after pleading guilty to fraud.
He was found guilty of defrauding, Steinhoff at Work, along with the boards of Steinhoff Manufacturing and Steinhoff SA of more than R376m.
The state was adamant it had a strong case against the accused.
The case returns to court on May 30.
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