Steinheist
Steinheist

Author: Rob Rose (Journalist)

Publisher:

Published: 2018-10-31

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 9780624085973

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"The Steinhoff crash wiped more than R200bn off the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, erased more than half the wealth of tycoon Christo Wiese and knocked the pension funds of millions of ordinary South Africans. When this investors' darling was exposed as a house of cards, tales of fraudulent accounting, a lavish lifestyle involving multimillion-rand racehorses and ructions in the 'Stellenbosch mafia' made headlines around the world. As regulators tally up the cost, Financial Mail editor Rob Rose reveals the real inside story behind Steinhoff. Based on dozens of interviews with key players in South Africa, the UK, Germany and the Netherlands - and documents not yet public - Steinheist reveals: How Bruno Steinhoff formed the company by doing business in the Communist bloc and apartheid South Africa; How the 'Markus myth' started in the dusty streets of Ga-Rankuwa and grew thanks to a 'bit of luck' in a 1998 takeover; How Jooste insiders shifted nasty liabilities off Steinhoff's balance sheet to secretive companies overseas in order to present a false picture of the profits; How Wiese was lucky to lose only R59bn and how Shoprite narrowly escaped getting caught in Steinhoff's web; and What happened behind closed boardroom doors in the frantic week before Jooste resigned"--Back cover.

Steinhoff inside SA's biggest corporate crash
Steinhoff inside SA's biggest corporate crash

Author: James-Brent Styan

Publisher: Penguin Random House South Africa

Published: 2018-07-18

Total Pages: 287

ISBN-13: 079937167X

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On 5 December 2017 the Steinhoff group was still worth R199 billion. 24 hours later more than R160 billion of this fortune was wiped out. The Steinhoff empire, that took 20 years to build into an international business giant, had crumbled overnight. Markus Jooste, Steinhoff’s flashy CEO, resigned via sms and has since been fleeing an avalanche of scandals and accusations: luxury homes for a blonde mistress, allegations of fraud, racing horses and unparalleled extravagance, a lavish, black Jaguar for an old university residence”¦ What exactly happened here? Who knew what? What is Steinhoff, who is Markus Jooste and what does it all have to do with the so called Stellenbosch mafia? Where does business tycoon Christo Wiese, Shoprite and Pepkor fit in and where is the pensioners’ money? Well-known financial writer James-Brent Styan unpacks these and other questions in this astounding tale of power and greed, of secrets and deceit, and ultimately the biggest financial breakdown in the history of South Africa. Through interviews with trustworthy sources, revelations from confidential documents and in-depth research about Steinhoff’s history, Styan uncovers what the group doesn’t want you to know. Follow the money: the story of Steinhoff, Markus Jooste and the Stellenbosch boys is a gripping financial thriller that will be told as cautionary tale or salacious scandal in both boardrooms and living rooms for decades to come.

The Stellenbosch Mafia
The Stellenbosch Mafia

Author: Pieter du Toit

Publisher: Jonathan Ball Publishers

Published: 2019-07-15

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 1868429199

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About 50km outside of Cape Town lies the beautiful town of Stellenbosch, nestled against vineyards and blue mountains that stretch to the sky. Here reside some of South Africa's wealthiest individuals: all male, all Afrikaans – and all stinking rich. Johann Rupert, Jannie Mouton, Markus Jooste and Christo Weise, to name a few. Julius Malema refers to them scathingly as 'The Stellenbosch Mafia', the very worst example of white monopoly capital. But who really are these mega-wealthy individuals, and what influence do they exert not only on Stellenbosch but more broadly on South African society? Author Pieter du Toit begins by exploring the roots of Stellenbosch, one of the wealthiest towns in South Africa and arguably the cradle of Afrikanerdom. This is the birthplace of apartheid leaders, intellectuals, newspaper empires and more. He then closely examines this 'club' of billionaires. Who are they and, crucially, how are they connected? What network of boardroom membership, alliances and family connections exist? Who are the 'old guard' and who are the 'inkommers', and what about the youngsters desperate to make their mark? He looks at the collapse of Steinhoff: what went wrong, and whether there are other companies at risk of a similar fate. He examines the control these men have over cultural life, including pulling the strings in South Africa rugby.

Democracy at Work
Democracy at Work

Author: Richard Wolff

Publisher: Haymarket Books

Published: 2012-10-02

Total Pages: 221

ISBN-13: 1608462579

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What, and who, are we working for? A thoughtful assessment on our current society from “probably America’s most prominent Marxist economist” (The New York Times). Capitalism as a system has spawned deepening economic crisis alongside its bought-and-paid-for political establishment. Neither serves the needs of our society. Whether it is secure, well-paid, and meaningful jobs or a sustainable relationship with the natural environment that we depend on, our society is not delivering the results people need and deserve. One key cause for this intolerable state of affairs is the lack of genuine democracy in our economy as well as in our politics. The solution requires the institution of genuine economic democracy, starting with workers managing their own workplaces, as the basis for a genuine political democracy. Here Richard D. Wolff lays out a hopeful and concrete vision of how to make that possible, addressing the many people who have concluded economic inequality and politics as usual can no longer be tolerated and are looking for a concrete program of action. “Wolff’s constructive and innovative ideas suggest new and promising foundations for much more authentic democracy and sustainable and equitable development, ideas that can be implemented directly and carried forward. A very valuable contribution in troubled times.” —Noam Chomsky, leading public intellectual and author of Hope and Prospects

Hitmen for Hire
Hitmen for Hire

Author: Mark Shaw

Publisher: Jonathan Ball Publishers

Published: 2017-07-10

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 1868427129

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Hitmen for Hire takes the reader on a journey like no other, navigating a world of paid hitmen, informers, rogue policemen, criminal taxi bosses, gang leaders, and crooked politicians and businessmen. Criminologist Mark Shaw examines a society in which contract killings have become commonplace, looking at who arranges hits, where to find a hitman, and even what it is like to operate as a hitman – or woman. Since 1994, South Africa has seen a worrying increase in the commercialisation of murder – and has been rocked by several high-profile contract killings. Drawing on his research of over a thousand incidents of hired assassinations, from 2000 to 2016, Shaw reveals how these murders are used to exert a mafia-type control over the country's legal and illegal economic activity. Contracted assassinations, and the organised criminal activity behind them, contain sinister linkages with the upperworld, most visibly in relation to disputes over tenders and access to government resources. State security actors increasingly mediate relations between the under and upper worlds, with serious implications for the long-term success of the post-apartheid democratic project.

The Fox Trilogy
The Fox Trilogy

Author: Chantell Ilbury

Publisher:

Published: 2015-07-13

Total Pages: 530

ISBN-13: 9780624075554

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Clem Sunter and Chantell Ilbury's seminal scenario planning books - The Mind of a Fox, Games Foxes Play and Socrates & the Fox - are now available for the first time as a single-volume e-book. The Fox Trilogy traces the development of a methodology that is now used around the world by large and small organisations alike.

The Grand Scam
The Grand Scam

Author: Rob Rose

Publisher: Penguin Random House South Africa

Published: 2013-11-20

Total Pages: 526

ISBN-13: 1770226222

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From 2005 to 2009, the heir to one of South Africa’s blue-blood families, Barry Tannenbaum, methodically constructed the largest-ever con in South African history. The Grand Scam exposes details about the brazen greed of the scammers, a bank that facilitated the shady dealings rather than alerting the authorities, and the naivety of business people who should have known better. It goes far beyond the original news stories, containing original research and material that, for the first time, answers the central question of why. Barry Tannenbaum, the grandson of the founder of one of the country’s biggest pharmaceutical firms, Adcock Ingram, offered investors stratospheric returns of more than 200 per cent a year by investing in the components used to make AIDS drugs. It was nothing more than a lie, which suckered the country’s business elite, including the former CEO of Pick n Pay, the one-time head of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and the ex-boss of OK Bazaars. After the bubble popped in June 2009, finance minister Pravin Gordhan announced that hundreds of investors in South Africa, Australia and Europe had ploughed more than R12.5 billion into Tannenbaum’s scheme, based on the empty promise of immense riches. Dwarfing the Brett Kebble rip-off, Fidentia and the Krion pyramid scheme, it proved to be the most embarrassing financial disaster in the country’s history, and it exposed holes in a banking and financial system billed as one of the safest in the world. For Tannenbaum’s victims, the nightmare continued after the scheme collapsed, as liquidators, tax officials and criminal investigators demanded their pound of flesh. But Tannenbaum, now at large on Australia’s Gold Coast, continues to live as if nothing happened, working for an Australian insurance company. The question that hasn’t been answered until now is, how did Tannenbaum swindle so many people with such ease? And, more crucially, why did he do it? Through extensive interviews with his family, friends and numerous ‘investors’, this book provides the startling answers to those questions. For the first time, the real motivation that fuelled South Africa’s Bernie Madoff is laid bare.

Destroying Democracy
Destroying Democracy

Author: Jane Duncan

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2021-08-01

Total Pages: 227

ISBN-13: 1776147022

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A history of the erosion of democracy across the globe Democracy is being destroyed. This is a crisis that expresses itself in the rising authoritarianism visible in divisive and exclusionary politics, populist political parties and movements, increased distrust in fact-based information and news, and the withering accountability of state institutions. Over the last four decades, democracy has radically shifted to a market democracy in which all aspects of human, non-human and planetary life are commodified, with corporations becoming more powerful than states and their citizens. This is how neoliberal capitalism functions at a systemic level and if left unchecked, is the greatest threat to democracy and a sustainable planet. Volume six of the Democratic Marxism series focuses on how decades of neoliberal capitalism have eroded the global democratic project and how, in the process, authoritarian politics are gaining ground. Scholars and activists from the political left focus on four country cases – India, Brazil, South Africa and the United States of America – in which the COVID-19 pandemic has fuelled and highlighted the pre-existing crisis. They interrogate issues of politics, ecology, state security, media, access to information and political parties, and affirm the need to reclaim and re-build an expansive and inclusive democracy. Destroying Democracy is an invaluable resource for the general public, activists, scholars and students who are interested in understanding the threats to democracy and the rising tide of authoritarianism in the global south and the global north.

Blood on Her Hands
Blood on Her Hands

Author: Tanya Farber

Publisher: Jonathan Ball Publishers

Published: 2019-06-24

Total Pages: 234

ISBN-13: 186842927X

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Murder has always fascinated us, and when women are the masterminds, the intrigue grows exponentially. Not only are female murderers much rarer than male killers, but their crimes usually also involve a more sophisticated type of plotting. In Blood on her hands, award-winning journalist Tanya Farber investigates the lives, minds and motivations of some of South Africa's most notorious female murderers, from the poisonous nurse Daisy de Melker, to the privileged but deeply disturbed Najwa Petersen, to the mysterious Joey Harhoff who died before revealing where the bodies of her victims (including her own niece) were. Farber sets each case against the backdrop of the different eras and regions of 20th and early 21st century South Africa the women operated in. Her writing style is lighter than the subject matter might suggest and Blood on Her Hands will keep you reading until late at night – probably with your light on. The women featured also include: Dina Rodrigues, Phoenix Racing Cloud Theron, Marlene Lehnberg, Chane van Heerden and Celiwe Mbokazi.