Why all the stalling on the Steinhoff share deals?

There must have been a few corks popped at Christo Wiese's Stellenbosch wine farm Lourensford after the Financial Services Board's insider trading watchlist, released this week, contained not a single reference to Steinhoff.

On the face of it, this seemed like good news for Wiese, South Africa's richest man, as well as Steinhoff CEO Markus Jooste, who co-owns the Klein Gustrouw wine estate.

To recap, just before Christmas last year, Steinhoff announced the largest deal in South Africa's history - its R62.8-billion takeover of Pepkor. It was a big win for Wiese, who will end up with 20% of Steinhoff.

The thing was, five Steinhoff directors (including Wiese and Jooste) had soaked up R146-million in Steinhoff's shares between September 9 and September 18. One day later, on September 19, private equity firm Brait, which owned a chunk of Pepkor's stock, issued a cautionary announcement to shareholders saying negotiations were under way.

The trouble is this: if Wiese and co were buying stock when they knew a big deal was brewing that would affect the stock price - a deal that hadn't been disclosed publicly to all shareholders - it could all have been rather serious. Dark mutterings of insider trading gained ground, and several investment pundits questioned how they were buying shares when it seemed clear that negotiations were happening.

But while it may seem from the FSB's list of new cases that the cloud of suspicion has lifted, this wouldn't be accurate.

Solly Keetse, the head of the FSB's market abuse department, said the fact that the list didn't include confirmation of an official probe into Steinhoff's share deals didn't mean anyone was off the hook.

"We have logged an investigation [in the Steinhoff case], but we haven't got [to] a stage where we can make a formal pronouncement on the matter," he said.

There's no little cynicism among investment pundits, however, who say they'll eat their hats if this goes further. "Those guys are so powerful - do you really think the FSB would dare take them on?" grumbled one especially cynical lawyer this week.

So why, three months after the Pepkor deal was announced, is the FSB still so unsure of what to do that it is still "investigating" whether to take it further? Surely it has found enough evidence to either launch a formal probe, or to say Steinhoff's bosses are off of the hook?

After all, it's not that complicated.

Those five directors bought their shares for between R51.85 and R54.95 each. After the deal was announced, Steinhoff's stock shot up 4.5% - today it sits at R67.85.

This shows that any advance notice of the Pepkor deal would have paid off handsomely - the only issue is, when did the directors know of an imminent deal?

Steinhoff chair Len Konar said in December that "we acted appropriately, professionally, properly" and the grumblings were due to "speculation" or "professional jealousy".

Wiese himself was vague on when exactly talks started, saying discussions were "ongoing, over a long period of time, they were on and off, then let's wait and see".

But Keetse said it isn't that simple a case to decipher. "It may sound straightforward ... but if you want to do justice to the matter, you can't do a quick investigation at the expense of not covering all the angles."

The FSB is perhaps mindful of the need not to blunder in the footsteps of other state agencies, which often rush to court in haste, before having to embarrassingly retreat.

But at the same time, if the point of the regulator's market abuse department is to ensure the "integrity" of the market, endless investigations help nobody.

Taking a look at the FSB's list, there are cases dating back years still labelled as "ongoing".

They include a probe into whether Harmony Gold released "misleading information" in 2007. Now, that's before Lehman Brothers collapsed and mortgage-backed securities wasn't such a naughty phrase in banking circles.

Keetse's department also still lists an "ongoing" insider trading probe into ConvergeNet stock, dating back to 2008 - before Barack Obama won his first term as US president.

The markets, clearly, move with a lot more obvious vigour than the FSB. Keetse said his department's objective is to "act as a deterrent" for market abusers, so "it takes time to do it properly".

But bearing in mind the cliché about what happens when justice is delayed, an injection of adrenaline would surely advance this mission.