In the month of December so far, sales were up 12.4 per cent compared to the same period last year, Mr Ford said. "These are healthy sales figures for a business group that is clearly performing well," he added. "For all our brands in the Steinhoff Asia Pacific group, and our 10,000 employees, it is business as usual." Reuters reported last month that Steinhoff International did not tell investors about almost $US1 billion in transactions with a related company despite laws that some experts believe require it to do so. The South Africa-headquartered, Dutch-registered Steinhoff has also been under investigation for suspected accounting irregularities by the state prosecutor in Germany since 2015. Steinhoff, Europe's second-largest furniture retailer by sales, has said that was a tax case relating to whether revenues were booked correctly, and taxable profit correctly declared.