CHRISTO WIESE, risk & riches

274pp., illus., paperback, Cape Town, 2019

A biography of South African businessman Christo Wiese (born 1941). He is the executive director of South African retail giant Shoprite. Under his leadership Shoprite, which started out as a chain of eight supermarkets in Cape Town, grew into a multibillion-dollar business. Wiese was formerly chairman and largest shareholder of Steinhoff International, a German-listed furniture conglomerate holding company. He resigned in 2017 in the wake of the Steinhoff accounting scandal and suffered a huge financial loss when the share price crashed.

"A fabulous, sweeping adventure read - almost a thriller - that chronicles the rags-to-riches rise of yet another giant of Afrikaner capitalism." Peter Bruce, journalist

Also available in Afrikaans.