A former director of Steinhoff subsidiary Steinhoff at Work has been sentenced to five years’ direct imprisonment for his role in a fraud scheme that inflated the retailer’s financial statements by more than R376m, marking the third conviction in the long-running Steinhoff case.
Iwan Peter Schelbert, 63, was sentenced by the Pretoria specialised commercial crimes Court on Friday after his plea and sentence agreement with the state under section 105A of the Criminal Procedure Act. Schelbert was convicted of fraud after his admission of involvement in the scheme, which formed part of the broader accounting irregularities that came to light at Steinhoff in late 2017.
Schelbert served as a director and board member of Steinhoff at Work from June 2004 until March 2018. According to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (the Hawks), his conviction stems from a fraudulent invoicing transaction generated in November 2016.
Prosecutors said Schelbert, acting on instructions from the then CFO, Andries Benjamin La Grange, generated a fraudulent invoice to TG Sources SARL, a company based in Martigny, Switzerland. The invoice was falsely presented as reflecting a legitimate transaction between Steinhoff at Work and the Swiss entity.
Stephanus Johannes Grobler and others produced supporting documentation to make the transaction appear legitimate. Payments were then processed on the basis of this fabricated paperwork, despite no underlying commercial activity.
The fraud inflated Steinhoff’s financial statements by more than R376m, misleading investors, creditors and other stakeholders.
Steinhoff at Work is a South African-based subsidiary of Steinhoff International, which was restructured and renamed Ibex in 2023. The company primarily operates in the manufacturing and distribution of furniture, timber and household products, providing context for the scale of operations affected by the fraud.
The Steinhoff collapse triggered one of South Africa’s largest corporate investigations, uncovering a network of inflated revenues, fictitious transactions and offshore arrangements designed to conceal losses and overstate profitability.
In a joint statement, the NPA and the Hawks said Schelbert’s conviction demonstrated the commitment to holding senior executives accountable in large-scale corporate fraud cases. The conviction is the third secured so far in the Steinhoff matter. Proceedings against two remaining accused, Hein Odendaal, 67, and Stephanus Johannes Grobler, 64, have been postponed to February 6.
In May, in a separate but connected legal development, the Pretoria commercial specialised crimes court in May relaxed bail conditions for the three former executives. Grobler, audit executive Odendaal and Schelbert successfully applied to reduce the frequency with which they must report to police stations, from weekly to every second week, as the state requested additional time to finalise the indictment and prepare for trial.
On the corporate front, Ibex, the restructured successor to Steinhoff International, in July dropped its legal challenge to a forfeiture order of more than R6bn in a settlement with the South African Reserve Bank.
The settlement ended a long-running dispute over alleged exchange control infringements and lifted restrictions that had prevented Ibex from trading certain shares in Pepkor, a major retail group.
As part of the deal, Ibex reduced its stake in Pepkor, selling about 28% of its shares for about R28bn. The Reserve Bank noted that the earlier fraud at Steinhoff had posed risks to South Africa’s reputation as a well-regulated financial market.
With Kabelo Khumalo and Sinesipho Schrieber
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