Mr. Tekkie strikes deal with luxury lifestyle brands company

Mr. Tekkie, the shoe retail chain led by Tekkie Town founder Braam van Huyssteen en former Tekkie Town CEO Bernard Mostert, has announced a new partnership with luxury lifestyle brands company New House of Busby on Thursday.

New House of Busby has the distribution rights to GUESS, Aldo, Call it Spring and Steve Madden, Kipling and Delsey. It also owns SDM Eyewear and operates two trading divisions.

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Since Mr. Tekkie was founded in September 2018, the company has expanded to 36 stores across South Africa.

As part of the new partnership, Mostert becomes the new CEO of New House of Busby. Willem Wait succeeds him as CEO of Mr. Tekkie. In a statement, Mostert described the move as a "unique opportunity" to combine "shared experience and expertise" to expand the businesses concerned and become an employer of choice. 

• READ: 'Utter relief' for Tekkie Town founders as Pepkor loses court bid

The then-Tekkie Town owners, including Van Huyssteen and Mostert, entered into an exchange agreement with Steinhoff for the sale of Tekkie Town during 2016. Following the collapse of Steinhoff, the former Tekkie Town team claims "it became clear" that the exchange agreement was based on the Steinhoff financials, which the company had subsequently admitted contained irregularities, and the Steinhoff shares they received in exchange were "worthless".

The former Tekkie Town owners, therefore, cancelled the transaction with Steinhoff, but this was not accepted by Steinhoff. Various ongoing court cases followed against Steinhoff and its subsidiary Pepkor, which owns Tekkie Town.

In the latest of these, Pepkor in September this year lost an application for leave to appeal a ruling that bars its parent company Steinhoff from disposing the shares it holds either directly or indirectly in Tekkie Town. The same ruling states that if Pepkor intends to dispose of Tekkie Town shares, it must notify in writing all parties involved in the intended transaction that Tekkie Town is the subject of claims in a legal process. At the time, Pepkor indicated it would approach the Supreme Court of Appeal for leave to appeal the matter.