South African retail tycoon Christo Wiese dropped from the billionaire ranks earlier on Thursday after the stock of Steinhoff International Holdings, the retail conglomerate where Wiese serves as the chairman, fell 80% in the course of two days. He now sits on a fortune estimated at $742 million, according to Forbes Real Time Rankings. Wiese had borrowed heavily to purchase shares of Steinhoff; Forbes estimates that he holds about $2.4 billion in debt. Since he joined the billionaires ranks in 2011 with a net worth of $1.6 billion, Wiese’s fortune fluctuated significantly. Steinhoff released a statement this week, announcing that it has asked accounting firm PwC to investigate the accounting irregularities.

Source: Forbes December 08, 2017 00:22 UTC