Case
Steinhoff International Holdings N.V. Shareholder Litigation
Following years of negotiation, Steinhoff International Holdings N.V., received approval from courts in the Netherlands and South Africa for a €1.7 billion global settlement with shareholders and creditors. Claimants had filed multiple class and group actions, including the first-ever investor class action in South Africa, alleging that Steinhoff had overstated its assets, issued false and misleading statements, and failed to disclose material information regarding its financial performance and prospects. An Analysis Group team led by Principal Chris Feige and Vice President Hadrien Vasdeboncoeur acted as independent economic advisor to Steinhoff throughout the settlement process and provided economic evidence to the Dutch and South African courts in support of the settlement.
The Analysis Group team, including Managing Principals Richard Starfield, Marc Van Audenrode, and Nicholas Crew and Principal Eric Korman, was initially retained to assist Steinhoff and Linklaters with preparation for litigation, evaluating share price inflation arising from the alleged misstatements and estimating potential total litigation claims from shareholders.
Analysis Group was then retained to assist Steinhoff and Linklaters, its counsel, in developing the proposed settlement structure and claim calculation method for an array of differently situated shareholder claimants and creditors. The Analysis Group team, again led by Mr. Feige and Mr. Vasdeboncoeur, reviewed Claimants’ share purchase and sale records to estimate claims and recoveries under different settlement approaches and worked with settling parties to convey the financial and economic rationale for the final settlement. The team also provided economic and financial analyses to Linklaters, co-counsel Werksmans, and Steinhoff throughout the settlement process, including valuation and financial forecasting, settlement negotiations, and communications with Claimants, courts, and third parties.
As part of the global settlement approval process in the Dutch and South African courts, another Analysis Group team, led by Managing Principal Maureen Chakraborty, Mr. Feige, and Mr. Vasdeboncoeur, developed a “liquidation comparator” to evaluate potential shareholder claimant and creditor recoveries in a hypothetical liquidation of Steinhoff. To estimate these recoveries, the Analysis Group team valued Steinhoff’s assets and liabilities, and modelled intercompany flows of value between Steinhoff’s myriad corporate entities. The estimated recoveries were compared to expected recoveries in the proposed global settlement in order to provide the courts with evidence of whether the settlement was beneficial to settling parties relative to a liquidation of the company. Mr. Feige presented the liquidation comparator analysis and the economic and financial rationale for the settlement to a court-appointed committee in the Netherlands representing shareholder claimants and other creditors of Steinhoff.
The liquidation analysis and proposed settlement terms were evaluated by the courts as part of their settlement approval processes and led to Steinhoff’s global settlement being formally approved by courts in the Netherlands and in South Africa.
Meet Our People
Chris Feige
PrincipalMr. Feige specializes in the areas of finance, securities, and financial markets. He has worked on and managed a range of securities and valuation projects in the UK and Europe. Mr. Feige has been appointed as expert in Dutch court to provide valuation and securities claims reports in support of Steinhoff’s global securities settlement, and gave evidence in the Dutch Enterprise Chamber regarding the valuation of Getir. He has also managed teams evaluating shareholder reliance and disclosure materiality and estimating counterfactual share prices in UK Financial Services and Markets Act (FSMA) Section 90A litigation matters. Mr. Feige has supported experts analyzing the volume of false and spam accounts on Twitter, Twitter’s information security infrastructure, Twitter’s data privacy and compliance with a US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) consent decree, and share price and valuation issues on behalf of Twitter in Twitter v. Musk in which Elon Musk eventually purchased Twitter at his initial offer price. In cases involving alleged market manipulation in the foreign exchange (FX) and IBOR markets, he has analyzed trade data and evaluated alleged manipulation strategies. Mr. Feige worked on USA v. Richard Usher, et al., and the Foreign Exchange Class Antitrust Litigation, analyzing FX trade and chat data, as well as competition issues; preparing experts for testimony at trial; and providing data analyses and consulting support to counsel throughout the projects. He has also worked on a range of international arbitration cases, including valuation, damages, and competition analyses. In addition, he has developed complex valuation models, including discounted cash flow models, and analyzed asset-backed securities, collateralized debt obligations, and other securitized products in support of expert testimony in a number of bankruptcy and damages matters. Mr. Feige has also worked on a number of international arbitrations valuing defaulted sovereign debt, expropriated oil fields, and retail operations. His work has been published in several industry journals.
Marc Van Audenrode
Managing Principal*Dr. Van Audenrode is an expert in data analysis and econometrics, labor economics, antitrust and competition policy, and public economics. He has consulted to clients - including law firms and government agencies - in Canada, the US, and Europe. Dr. Van Audenrode’s work includes developing a methodology to value desktop software; he also developed expertise valuing goods as varied as restaurant franchises, executive stock options, or smartphone features. His recent work in public economics includes evaluating the economic rent from hydroelectricity to the Canadian economy and the value of logging rights on the ancestral territory of a Canadian First Nation. In the area of labor economics, his work has included filing an expert report assessing fair compensation for Quebec provincial judges and Quebec prosecutors and advising Quebec’s commission on pay equity. Dr. Van Audenrode has filed expert reports in courts in the US, Canada, Belgium, Germany, France, and the Netherlands, and has testified in Canada and the US. He recently filed a report with the Amsterdam Court of Appeal in support of the settlement reached between Ageas and claimant organizations in the Fortis case, the largest settlement ever reached through the Dutch Collective Settlement Act (WCAM). Dr. Van Audenrode’s scientific research and articles have been published in numerous peer-reviewed academic journals and trade journals. He is a coauthor of the book The Mutual Fund Industry: Competition and Investor Welfare, and is a frequent presenter at industry and academic conferences.
*Marc Van Audenrode srl