Fresh twist in scandal at Poundland owner – chairman and son quit
The deepening crisis at Poundland's parent company has claimed new victims, with the company chairman and his son both quitting.
It comes after Steinhoff, the South African retail giant that bought Poundland for £610 million last year, admitted it would have to restate its financial figures for 2016 because "they can no longer be relied upon".
The scandal broke last week, when Steinhoff's chief executive, Markus Jooste, quit as the group revealed it was postponing releasing of its 2017 figures because of "accounting irregularities".
Steinhoff's chairman, billionaire and biggest shareholder Christo Wiese, had stepped in as temporary executive chairman to run the business but now he has quit too.
The conglomerate which owns Poundland, Bensons for Beds and Harveys in the UK, said in a statement that Mr Wiese had offered to resign in order to reinforce independent governance of the company.
His son Jacob has also resigned from the board – “given the family relationship” – while director Heather Sonn now takes over as acting chairperson.
The crisis has wiped billions of pounds of Steinhoff's value and has cast doubt over the future of a retail group with 130,000 employees at companies around the world.
And global banks are facing substantial losses on their loans to the company has it went on a takeover spree in recent years.
Withing a weeks of sealing its deal to buy Poundland last year it introduced its Pep&Co budget clothing brand to scores of stores and moved away from the company's traditional £1-for-everything format, introducing a broader range of products.
As well as a series of investigations into the latest accounting scandal, Steinhoff and four people connected to the company have been under investigation by German authorities over a possible accounting fraud since 2015, when the company launched its listing on the Frankfurt stock exchange.
