Cape Town - Billionaire business magnate Christo Wiese’s bid to have the historic Lanzerac wine estate outside Stellenbosch returned to him by former Steinhoff chief executive Markus Jooste has received the nod from the Western Cape High Court.
In an action instituted by Wiese and five companies he represented in the sale of the estate against the first defendant, Lanzerac Estates Investments (formerly Morpheus Property Investments), and the second defendant, Markus Jooste, an oral agreement about the sale was reached in November 2011.
Wiese sued Jooste in 2021, alleging Jooste had offered him Steinhoff shares in exchange for the Lanzerac Wine Estate.
In the deal, Wiese said he believed he had sold the wine farm to what was described as “a consortium of unnamed investors” on whose behalf Jooste was acting.
In the deal, it was agreed that Wiese’s interests in various businesses, assets and entities known as “Lanzerac” would be acquired by the consortium at their agreed combined value of R220 million in exchange for a stipulated number of shares in Steinhoff International of equivalent value.
Wiese and the five companies, who were the plaintiffs in the case, told the court Jooste knew at the time Wiese believed the Steinhoff share price on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) fairly reflected their market value.
In the case, Wiese alleged that at all times during the negotiation and implementation of the transaction, Jooste knew the financial records and reports of Steinhoff and its subsidiaries had materially “misstated its income, profits and assets since at least 2009”.
Wiese and his five fellow plaintiffs argued that Jooste and his accomplices had deliberately engineered this state of affairs to mislead investors concerning the value of the Steinhoff shares.
They also argued Jooste lied that he was acting on behalf of a consortium and that, in truth, he was acting on his own behalf to acquire Lanzerac through an indirect interest in Lanzerac Estates Investments, which he actually controlled.
Jooste was at the time the Steinhoff CEO and Wiese argued he claimed to be acting on behalf of a consortium to conceal the fact that the substantial number of Steinhoff shares exchanged in the transactions were shares of which he personally wished to dispose “at or about their listed price”.
The case before Judge Ashley Binns-Ward concerned the exceptions or arguments brought by Lanzerac Estates Investments against Wiese and his fellow plaintiff’s particulars of claim. Four grounds of exception were set out in the notice of exception, but the first, premised on the arbitration clauses in the contracts, was abandoned.
As for the three remaining exceptions, Judge Binns-Ward dismissed all of them with costs. The main case is now expected to go to trial, though no dates have as yet been provided.