I was interested to read that Markus Jooste has climbed up the Sunday Times list, now being worth R2,7 billion.  That is no doubt as a result of the Steinhoff share showing some significant growth in the last year, and I think it is only really the beginning.  They have just been involved in one of the biggest mergers in South African commercial history, and there is no doubt more to come.  I cannot talk about anybody else on the rich list, because I don’t know them, but I spent 6 years as a director of the Racing Association and as a result have spent numerous hours in the boardroom watching and listening to Markus.  I have met many very clever people, particularly amongst some of my University Professors, as well as some of the most brilliant legal minds in South Africa, ranging from the very best senior counsel to up and coming counsel, but none of them intimidated me, when it came to intellectual prowess as Markus did.  

I can say without doubt, and it is the only reason that I bought shares in the company, that he is the cleverest man I have ever come across.  An accountant by trade, when he spoke about law, I also kept quiet, because he knew far more than I did – although in fairness to me, corporate law is not my game.  For many years I thought that the investment community was not appreciating his brilliance, and so one of the mistakes I made was the initial Steinhoff shares that I bought for R13,00, and then R17,00, I sold at about R27,00.  No sooner did I sell, in the next 9 months or so the share price literally doubled again to about R50,00 at which time I decided to buy the shares again.  That obviously cost me.  It does show you that when you believe in something you should stick to your guns and wait for the market to recognise the product.  For me it has never been about the actual Steinhoff product, but just Markus’ brilliance and he is one of those people, if you ever heard that he was leaving a company, which I doubt would be the case, he would sell out straightaway and buy shares in the new company.