South African banks are looking at options ranging from debt consolidation to new ways of leveraging equity to avoid defaults when coronavirus-related debt relief measures end, industry officials said, Reuters reported. The banks gave customers in good standing relief on loans during the pandemic, including payment holidays of up to three months. But some consumers are still in trouble. Some banks have offered extensions, while others like Capitec offered to refund interest accumulated during payment holidays.

The South African government is “on course” to provide a funding commitment for the restructuring of loss-making South African Airways (SAA), a senior official said on Friday, Reuters reported. The comments by the acting director-general of the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) will ease concerns at the airline after the finance ministry told lawmakers last week it would not provide any new money.

A South African court today dismissed an appeal by administrators in charge of South African Airways (SAA) against a ruling which prevented them from laying off staff, Reuters reported. The failure of the appeal means the administrators may have to start consultations about layoffs from scratch if employees do not accept severance packages they have been offered. South African labour law stipulates a minimum two-month consultation period for layoffs.

South African Airways cleared another hurdle needed to ensure the state-owned carrier’s survival when most labor groups agreed to sweetened severance packages for retrenched workers, Bloomberg News reported. The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa and the South African Airways Cabin Crew Association, which were fiercely opposed to plans to cut the workforce to 1,000 staff from about 4,700, agreed to fresh terms including unpaid training courses for some of the staff beyond their departure, the government said in a statement late Tuesday.

Edcon Holdings Ltd. agreed to sell part of South African clothing chain Edgars to a private equity-backed regional rival, potentially safeguarding a 91-year-old brand and saving thousands of jobs, Bloomberg News reported. Administrators led by Lance Schapiro and Piers Marsden struck a deal with Retailability Pty Ltd., a holding company for brands Legit, Beaver Canoe and Style, which owns 460 stores across southern Africa. Details of the transaction will be finalized based on further agreements, the business-rescue team said today.

Steinhoff International, battling the fallout from a massive accounting fraud, faces legal claims amounting to more than 9 billion euros ($10.10 billion), the South African retailer’s annual report showed on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The report for the year ended September 2019 listed numerous court cases with claimants seeking more than 9 billion euros in payments or damages. It also included Steinhoff’s annual results, with the retailer’s full-year loss widening to 1.8 billion euros from a 1.2 billion loss a year earlier.

South Africa’s Department of Public Enterprises announced its withdrawal from a panel that was established to facilitate talks with the troubled national airline’s workers about its planned overhaul, accusing three labor unions of undermining its work and putting jobs at risk, Bloomberg News reported. South African Airways was placed into a form of bankruptcy protection six months ago after a succession of managers failed to restore it to profitability and Finance Minister Tito Mboweni urged an end to repeated bailouts.

South Africa’s finance minister has warned that Africa’s most industrialised economy is on the verge of a sovereign debt crisis and its biggest contraction in almost a century, as the country’s coronavirus epidemic gathers pace, the Financial Times reported.

A vote on a restructuring plan for loss-making South African Airways (SAA) was delayed until next month on Thursday, after some creditors and trade unions secured an adjournment after months of wrangling over the airline’s future, Reuters reported. The administrators, who took over SAA in December after almost a decade of financial losses, published their restructuring plan last week and now expect the vote to take place on July 14.

South Africa’s public enterprises ministry on Wednesday urged creditors to back a restructuring plan for South African Airways (SAA), saying it was the only way to rescue the loss-making airline, Reuters reported. Creditors are due to vote on the plan on Thursday, but one of the creditors - private airline Airlink - is in court on Wednesday trying to prevent the vote from happening. State-owned SAA’s administrators published the proposal last week after repeated delays and months of wrangling.