Fighting an existential threat: CEO Gerrie Fourie on Capitec's defence against Viceroy

In December 2017, a previously unknown operation called Viceroy Research shot to prominence when a scathing report on Steinhoff was put into the public domain. The allegations in the report accelerated the demise of what was then the world's second largest furniture group, providing fresh impetus to the panic which erupted among investors when auditors Deloitte refused to sign off the 2017 financial year's accounts and, as a direct result, Steinhoff CEO Markus Jooste resigned. A month later the suddenly famous Viceroy turned its focus onto Capitec, South African banking's disruptive force whose stock price peaked just under R1 100 a share in December having risen from R33 a decade before. Over the weekend I met with Capitec CEO Gerrie Fourie, who was passing through London on his way home after a week's holiday. What transpired was a lesson in how successfully managing communications in a crisis requires total attention from the very top.