The South African Reserve Bank froze the funds in five accounts linked to Steinhoff’s local operations – said to hold a cumulative value of about R5.5bn. The Reserve Bank’s intervention is sure to tie a knot in operations but has not been declared in so many words in Steinhoff’s latest annual financial statements. Some chutzpah for a company previously found to have misrepresented its financial statements.
De Klerk also did not answer questions about the impact the SARB order may have on these business operations.