South African-German-Dutch international retail holding company Steinhoff has raised R7.3 billion ($527.40 million) from the placement of 370 million shares in its subsidiary Pepkor Holdings to help settle outstanding debts.
In 2014, Christo Wiese sold Pepkor Holdings to Steinhoff International in exchange for about 20 percent of Steinhoff’s issued shares. Pepkor is a clothing and furniture retailer tha towns retail stores, PEP and Ackermans.
Steinhoff said the proceeds will help fund a R25-billion ($1.7 billion) settlement proposal with complainants who lost out during a 2017 share-price plunge, News 24 reported.
In a recent update on Sept. 14, the South African-based international retailer said the shares were placed at a price of R19.75 ($1.37) per share, a nine-percent discount to the pre-launch closing share price.
The shares constitute about 10 percent of the total issued Pepkor shares. Following the placement and the proposed distribution of other shares as compensation to claimants, the dual-listed company said it will still retain 50.1 percent of Pepkor, down from 68.2 percent.
Steinhoff was founded in 1964 in Westerstede, Lower Saxony, Germany, by German billionaire businessman Bruno Ewald Steinhoff. The company lists on the Johannesburg and Frankfurt stock exchanges.
As of August 2016, Steinhoff operated retailing activities in 30 countries, with more than 6,500 retail outlets belonging to 40 different brands, employing about 90,000 people. Sixty percent of the company’s revenue, and two-thirds of its benefits, come from Europe.
Wiese is a South African businessman and former billionaire. His source of wealth is consumer retail.
