Africa

Steinhoff International Holdings NV may have to compromise with creditors over the length of a debt-payment extension plan to win support for a deal that may keep the embattled retailer afloat, according to people familiar with the situation. The owner of Conforama in France and Mattress Firm in the U.S. is negotiating a two-year payment delay with bondholders and lenders that would include zero cash interest, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the talks are still ongoing, Bloomberg News reported. The South African company initially proposed a three-year payment postponement.

Mozambique moved closer to becoming a player on the fast-growing global market for liquefied natural gas, eight years after the first major deep-water discovery there, Bloomberg News reported. The development of hydrocarbon resources is crucial for the southern African country, which has struggled this year to service its debt. While the LNG projects will require tens of billions of dollars in funding and take years to develop, they offer a way to stimulate growth in one of the world’s poorest countries. Exxon Mobil Corp.

The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund will examine debt-crippled OPEC member Congo Republic's request for a bailout on July 6, according to an IMF calendar seen by Reuters on Wednesday. Like other central African oil producers, Congo has been hit hard by low crude prices and is struggling under the weight of over $9 billion in debt, equivalent to around 110 percent of its gross domestic product, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

Steinhoff, the global retailer embroiled in South Africa’s biggest ever corporate scandal, sought an urgent extension to talks with creditors over restructuring its debt, the Financial Times reported. The company, which discovered a multibillion-euro black hole in its accounts last December that wiped $15bn from its shares, said on Wednesday that it might have to place its European operations into “local reorganisation procedures” if creditors did not agree to another three weeks of talks on restructuring by Friday.

Vodafone's Ghana business plans to list on the local stock market after restructuring its loans, the head of the local unit told Reuters on Tuesday. Yolanda Zoleka Cuba said Vodafone was in talks with the West African country, which owns a 30 percent stake, to restructure its debt, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. The world's largest mobile group by revenue paid $900 million for a 70 percent stake in state-run Ghana telecom in 2008 while the government retained the remaining 30 percent with an enterprise value of around $1.3 billion at the time.

South African units of Jindal Steel & Power Ltd. filed for a local form of bankruptcy protection known as business rescue this month, Bloomberg News reported. Jindal Mining SA, Jindal Africa Investments and Eastern Solid Fuels filed notice of the voluntary proceedings on June 12, according to documents posted on Jindal Africa’s website. A spokesman for the company didn’t immediately reply to an email seeking comment. Jindal Mining SA’s main business is coal production at the Kiepersol mine, according to one of the documents.

Crisis-hit Steinhoff will sell Austrian property assets valued at 490 million euros (428.3 million pounds) to tycoon Rene Benko's Signa Holding, it said on Friday, the latest sale by the South African retailer following an accounting scandal, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Steinhoff has been battling to stay afloat since last December when it revealed holes in its accounts that sent its shares crashing and forced it into selling some of its assets to pay down debt and beef up its liquidity.

South African construction firm Basil Read Holdings said on Wednesday it had applied to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange for the voluntary suspension of the listing of its shares after a key unit started business rescue proceedings, Reuters reported. The cash-strapped company announced on Friday that Basil Read Limited, its wholly owned subsidiary which houses its construction unit, had started business rescue proceedings after it failed to secure bridge funding from lenders. Its shares have plunged more than 90 percent from a high of 22 cents to close at 1 cents on Friday.

Mozambique’s central bank reduced its benchmark lending rate for the sixth consecutive meeting as inflation lingered near a 2015 low and the regulator tries to spur an economy that’s forecast to expand at the slowest pace in 18 years, Bloomberg News reported. The Monetary Policy Committee cut the benchmark interbank rate, known by its Portuguese acronym MIMO and introduced in April 2017, by 75 basis points to 15.75 percent, Banco de Mocambique Governor Rogerio Zandamela told reporters Wednesday in Maputo, the capital. It held the permanent lending facility at 18 percent.

A consortium led by top oil trader Vitol has entered exclusive talks to acquire stakes in Nigerian offshore fields that are held by Brazil’s Petrobras and its partners, industry sources said, Reuters reported. The assets are estimated to be worth up to $2.5 billion, the two banking sources and one industry source told Reuters. The buyers are talking to state-controlled Petroleo Brasileiro SA, known as Petrobras, which is leading the sale, the sources added.