By all accounts, Markus Jooste was a genius. An accounting maverick that attracted the attention of the Stellenbosch business scene early on — a crowd he would later betray — laughing all the way to the bank in the process.
Greed would undo the man who was at some point hailed as the brains behind “Africa’s Ikea” when Steinhoff went on an acquisition spree in the early 2000s.
As history would later reveal, Steinhoff was no Ikea in the making — but rather a devious African version of Enron — with Jooste pulling the strings.
Christo Wiese, Jooste’s former mentor turned nemesis, accurately summed up Jooste’s ability to deceive Steinhoff shareholders for what felt like an eternity when he declared in 2022, “He fooled every single one of us.”
Wiese, at some stage the country’s wealthiest man, would pay a heavy price from Jooste betrayal. Not to mention the small matter of selling his prized Lanzerac Wine Estate to Jooste — in a deal that likely stole the estate from Wiese.
News that Jooste put an end to his life as SA’s law enforcement agencies finally woke up from their six-year slumber is cold comfort to his many faceless victims. The fraud he allegedly orchestrated at Steinhoff by overstating profits and hiding losses was not victimless. An army of people lost their savings as pension funds that invested in Steinhoff bled billions of rand.
It is the silent cries of these countless victims that one hopes Jooste last heard before bringing a violent end to his fraudulent professional life.
Greed, which drove Jooste and his sidekicks to pursue a multiyear defrauding of Steinhoff and its shareholders, could not be quenched until they could not keep up the façade any more.
For good measure Jooste added salt to the wound when he tipped off his associates to dump Steinhoff shares when it became clear to him that the jig was up.
“Mr Jooste was not only the CEO of Steinhoff, a multinational company, but he was also Steinhoff. He knew Steinhoff and the rights and wrongs within the company. If he, uninvited, advises three friends to dispose of their Steinhoff shares and destroy his advice SMSs, it shows, as Mr Marcus (Jooste’s lawyer) submitted, that his actions were deliberate, premeditated and calculated,” judge Louis Harms opined.
In the heyday of Steinhoff, with Jooste at the helm, he seemed unimpeachable, a business executive whose grit and ingenuity had fuelled his rise to the top of corporate SA. But lies have short legs.
Having earned his place in history’s footnote alongside fellow charlatans like Bernie Madoff, Jooste died as a reviled symbol of corporate greed and, once, one of the most sought-after executives. Jooste’s sophistry, which dumbfounded even auditors, has also exposed SA’s capacity to investigate timeously high finance crimes.
It’s an indictment of SA’s law enforcement agencies that Jooste died a free man, leaving his countless victims without the elusive closure. But like many cowards similar to him, he could not account for his deeds — opting to have the final say.
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