Showmax has just unveiled the first trailer for the second installment of Steinheist, delving even deeper into South Africa’s biggest corporate fraud scandal.
On 6 December 2017, Steinhoff CEO Markus Jooste resigned amid an investigation into accounting irregularities at the retail giant, which owned brands such as Ackermans, Incredible Connection, Morkels, Pennypinchers, PEP, Russells, Tekkie Town, and Timbercity.
Steinhoff’s share price plummeted by 90% within a week, wiping more than R200 billion off the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE)—and devastating the pensions and investments of ordinary South Africans.
“Apparently, Markus told his wife, ‘Give this five years. By then, it’ll have blown over, and we can move on with our lives,’” recalls former Coronation Fund Managers CEO and co-founder Thys du Toit in episode 4.
That prediction didn’t pan out. Five years after Jooste’s resignation, the first three episodes of Steinheist premiered to critical acclaim, record-breaking documentary views on Showmax, and renewed public outrage over why Jooste remained a free man.
Now, episodes 4 and 5 continue the story, picking up a month after the documentary’s 2022 release, when the Reserve Bank seized R1.4 billion of Jooste’s assets.
From his 20-year ban and R15 million fine from the JSE to his pursuit by German authorities, from his record R475 million fine from the Financial Sector Conduct Authority to his police summons to stand trial, these new episodes follow the tightening legal grip around Jooste leading up to his suicide on a rocky beach in Hermanus on 21 March 2024.
But Jooste’s death didn’t mark the end of the saga. The very next day, former Steinhoff executive Stéhan Grobler was arrested. A month later, R60 million worth of assets were seized from Bernice Odendaal, Jooste’s alleged mistress.
Episodes 4 and 5 examine the ongoing efforts to recover stolen funds and hold Jooste’s accomplices accountable—from insider trading prosecutions in South Africa to fraud convictions in Germany, and the sentencing and plea deal of Steinhoff’s former chief financial officer, Ben la Grange.
Comparing the case to a chess match, Jooste’s fellow Hermanus resident, Alec Hogg, editor of BizNews, remarks, “The game is not over. There are still other pieces on the board… That’s really the big question: ‘Who are the accomplices?’”
Christo Wiese, Steinhoff’s former chairperson, agrees. As he states in the trailer, “We all accepted that he couldn’t do it alone.”
The second installment of Steinheist features interviews with key figures at the heart of the scandal:
- Lesetja Kganyago, governor of the South African Reserve Bank
- Alex Pascoe, head of market abuse at the Financial Sector Conduct Authority
- Zwelakhe Mnguni, chief investment officer and co-founder of Benguela Global Fund Managers, who initiated the first criminal case against Markus Jooste
- Louis du Preez, CEO of Steinhoff when it was dissolved
- Jan Cronjé of News24, a runner-up in the Business Journalism category at the 2024 Standard Bank Sikuvile Journalism Awards for his Steinhoff coverage
- Former Daily Maverick investigative journalist Pauli Van Wyk, a past Journalist of the Year winner
- Rob Rose, who literally wrote the book on Steinheist
Episode 5 concludes by posing an urgent question: How can South Africa prevent another corporate fraud of this magnitude?
As accountant, academic, and activist Khaya Sithole warns, “People should not be allowed to labour under the impression that it will never happen again—because we didn’t see this one coming. That means we probably can’t see the next one coming unless we do things differently.”
Steinheist is produced by SAFTA-winning true crime specialists IdeaCandy, known for Devilsdorp, Tracking Thabo Bester, Rosemary’s Hitlist, and School Ties.
The documentary became the most-nominated film going into the SAFTAs, with director Richard Finn Gregory and producer Elle Oosthuizen earning the Sanlam Group Financial Journalist of the Year award for 2022—the first TV journalists to win the prize in nearly a decade. The duo also took home the award for Broadcast: TV and Video.
“When the first part came out, there was massive public outcry over why, five years later, nothing had been done—especially when so many people had lost their retirement savings,” says Gregory, who happened to be in Hermanus on the day of Jooste’s suicide. “It seems that Steinheist added pressure on authorities to act. So it was important to update the story and show that the wheels of justice have been turning—just not as quickly as many had hoped.”
Episodes 4 and 5 premiere on Showmax on Thursday, 20 March 2025—one day before the first anniversary of Jooste’s death.
Check out the trailer for the new episodes below:
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Watch this space for updates in the Television category on Running Wolf’s Rant.
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