[3] Its holdings were in the retail sector, primarily in furniture and household goods, and included a 43,8% stake in South Africa's Pepkor group.

[6] In 1997, Steinhoff acquired 35 per cent of Gommagomma, a furniture company based in South Africa, and prepared for a merger the following year.

The company moved its headquarters to South Africa in 1998, attracted by the low production costs, and went public on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange that same year.

[7] In subsequent years, Steinhoff acquisitions included an £86 million investment in the United Kingdom's Homestyle Group, in 2005; and, in 2011, a $1.2 billion investment in French Conforama, Europe's second largest retailer of home furnishings, with over 200 stores in France, Spain, Switzerland, Portugal, Luxembourg, Italy and Croatia; and, in 2013, the acquisition of Austrian home retailer Kika-Leiner.

[21] Among the casualties was a consortium of lenders, including Japanese bank Nomura and a range of U.S. institutions, which had extended a $1.9 billion margin loan to Steinhoff.

[23] On 25 April 2018, Extreme Digital, a Hungarian e commerce firm acquired by Steinhoff in October 2015, was resold to their founders Balázs Várkonyi and Gyula Kelemen through their buying back shares.

[26] In September 2019, the company told its shareholders that it would address its debts by selling off its non-retail assets and cutting jobs at Conforma.

[28] On 8 July 2020, Steinhoff sold its remaining stake in Conforama France to Mobilux Sàrl which has been the furniture retailer BUT's parent company since 2016.

[36] In the interim, Wiese (who at first had stepped in as acting CEO)[21] resigned as chairman,[15] and, the week after Jooste's resignation, the Standing Committee on Finance of the Parliament of the Republic of South Africa condemned Steinhoff and called for investigations of the company by regulators, including the Financial Services Board and the South African Reserve Bank.

[23] After a stint in which chief operating officer Danie van der Merwe served as acting CEO,[21] Louis du Preez was appointed to replace Jooste.

The scandal, South Africa's largest corporate fraud, resulted in losses exceeding 250 billion rands for investors.

[49] The scandal also gave rise to numerous civil claims against Steinhoff: by early 2021, it faced over 90 separate lawsuits – in South Africa, Germany, and the Netherlands – lodged by investors aggrieved by the drop in its share price after the December 2017 revelations.

[50] Deloitte, as Steinhoff's auditor during the time the irregularities were taking place, agreed to contribute up to R1.3 billion (or €70 million) in compensation to claimants.

[34] Predating the accounting scandal was a longstanding legal dispute between Steinhoff and Austrian investor Andreas Seifert of XXXLutz [de].

[24][53] Steinhoff's South African Pepkor brands included Ackermans, Buco, Dunns, Flash, HiFi Corp, Incredible Connection, John Craig, Pennypinchers, Pep, Refinery, Russels, Shoe City, Tekkie Town and Timbercity.