Africa

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Friday that his government did not agree with plans to cut some of struggling South African Airways’ (SAA) domestic routes, plunging rescue efforts for the cash-strapped carrier into uncertainty, Reuters reported. State-owned SAA entered a form of bankruptcy protection in December and is fighting for its survival. Specialists appointed to try to rescue SAA said on Thursday that SAA would cease flights to Durban, East London and Port Elizabeth from Feb.

Proposals to reorganize the 454 billion rand of debt ($30.7 billion) owed by South Africa’s state-owned power company are days away from completion, according to an official who’s overseen their formulation, Bloomberg News reported. The company’s Eurobond yields fell by the most since June.

Ghana’s efforts to raise domestic revenue are beginning to bear fruit and will help the country to be less dependent on debt, Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta said a day after the nation sold $3 billion in Eurobonds, Bloomberg News reported. West Africa’s second-biggest economy received about $15 billion in offers for the debt issuance that included a tranche of sub-Saharan Africa’s longest-yet Eurobond with an average life of 40 years. The sale would increase Ghana’s debt burden, which the International Monetary Fund estimated was 63% of gross domestic product at the end of 2019.

RT Briscoe (Nigeria) Plc is finalising arrangements to raise new capital to pay its burgeoning debts and improve working capital as the automobile company struggles to stave off insolvency, The Nation reported. In a regulatory filing at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), the board of the company stated that it was finalising arrangements for an open-ended actively managed fund to raise funds from the capital market. The net proceeds of the fund raising will be used to settle existing liabilities and increase working capital.

Private equity firm Kuramo Capital risks losing a total of Sh699 million worth of loans it had advanced to TransCentury, the parent company of East African Cables, which is facing a liquidation suit, Business Daily reported. Kuramo provided the loans between 2017 and 2018 and they were mostly secured by 56.7 million shares of the cables manufacturer with a current market value of Sh124 million. The PE firm gave the loans in its capacity as the controlling shareholder of TransCentury where it holds a 25 percent equity.

South African Airways finally secured the funding it needs to keep flying for the time being, yet there’s still a long way to go before the state-owned carrier can claim to be stable, Bloomberg News reported. SAA probably has enough cash to keep operating for as long as eight months after the Development Bank of Southern Africa stepped in with a 3.5 billion rand ($240 million) injection, according to Joachim Vermooten, an independent aviation consultant.

East African Cables is seeking to restructure nearly a fifth of its bank debt, including a 285 million shilling ($2.83 million) loan to a local lender that has sought to wind it up over the debt, it said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The court petition by SBM Bank to unwind the company was first reported by local media on Monday. East African Cables makes electric and telecoms cables sold across East and Central Africa. Last year, the company and its parent firm restructured 82% of their debts. “The company...

South African Airways finally secured the funding it needs to keep flying for at least a few more months, yet there’s still a long way to go before the state carrier can claim to be stable, Bloomberg News reported. The loss-making airline was put into a local form of bankruptcy protection late last year and its administrators have little more than a month left to come up with a workable plan to turn it around.

The Genevan jeweler De Grisogono SA, known for extravagant diamond jewelry worn by the likes of Paris Hilton, filed for bankruptcy, ensnared in a corruption probe involving Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of Angola’s former president, Bloomberg News reported. De Grisogono couldn’t secure a buyer despite talks that lasted several months, the company said in a statement on Wednesday. The failed negotiations forced the company to file for creditor protection with Swiss authorities, which if accepted, will affect 65 jobs in the nation, the company said.

After months of forcing lenders to extend more credit, Nigeria’s central bank last week stunned markets with a measure that could result in the opposite response, Bloomberg News reported. Governor Godwin Emefiele increased the percentage of deposits that lenders need to park with the regulator -- and which doesn’t earn interest -- by 500 basis points to the highest level in more than four years. By upping the cash reserve requirement to 27.5%, the central bank is draining lenders of the funds they would typically use to create loans.