Troubled low-cost African carrier Fastjet Plc warned on Friday it may have to go into administration, shut shop or sell itself as it had only enough cash to keep it in business for another seven days, Reuters reported. The airline, which had a cash balance of $6.8 million as of Thursday, said it might have to formally hire insolvency advisers for the process if its cash balance does not improve.
Steinhoff International Holdings NV tumbled after the global retailer said the results of a forensic investigation by auditors PwC will be delayed, Bloomberg News reported. The news comes exactly a year after the disclosure of accounting irregularities and the resignation of its CEO threw the company into crisis. The findings of the probe were postponed until the end of February, while the release of earnings for both last year and fiscal 2018 were pushed out to mid-April, the company said Thursday, dashing its efforts to publish audited results for 2017 by the end of this year.
South Africa’s government is prioritizing regaining an investment grade rating on its debt as part of its plans to revive a stagnant economy, Finance Minister Tito Mboweni said. Moody’s Investors Service is the only one of the three major credit-rating companies that still assesses South Africa’s debt at investment grade, Bloomberg News reported. S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings Ltd. cut their ratings to junk during former President Jacob Zuma’s tenure which was characterized by political uncertainty due to multiple cabinet reshuffles and corruption scandals.
South African Airways’s suppliers are slashing payment periods to reduce the risk of losing out from a collapse of the troubled state carrier, which is struggling to pay lenders 5 billion rand ($361 million) due by the end of this month, Bloomberg News reported. Companies with contracts with SAA are cutting settlement terms to seven days from 21 days as the creditor deadline looms, interim Chief Financial Officer Deon Fredericks said in an interview in Cape Town. The National Treasury is working to facilitate the payment, with the process “well under way,” he said.
Steinhoff International said on Thursday its Mattress Firm Inc unit, the largest U.S. mattress retailer, emerged out of bankruptcy with access to $525 million in exit financing, within two months of filing for Chapter 11 protection, Reuters reported. Mattress Firm also closed about 660 underperforming stores, said Steinhoff, which has been working on a deal to restructure the debt of some units after revealing multi-billion-euro holes in its balance sheet. The store closures still leave the Houston-based company with about 2,600 stores across the United States.
South African Airways is looking at ways to roll over 9.2 billion rand ($640 million) of debt by March as the loss-making state-owned carrier works to make more routes profitable, Chief Executive Officer Vuyani Jarana said. The airline has emerged as a major headache for President Cyril Ramaphosa’s government as it battles to ease the burden of state-owned companies on public finances, Bloomberg News reported.
South Africa’s finance minister said the nation’s troubled flag-carrier should be shut down, casting doubt on President Cyril Ramaphosa’s stated goal of saving what was once Africa’s biggest airline, the Financial Times reported. South African Airways “is lossmaking, it’s unlikely to sort out the situation, in my view we should close it down”, said Tito Mboweni, an outspoken former central bank governor, at an event with investors in New York on Thursday.
Steinhoff International Holdings NV is considering the sale of properties within French furniture chain Conforama, the latest move by the embattled retailer to shore up its balance sheet, according to people familiar with the matter. The value of the portfolio is about 800 million euros ($907 million), said the people, who asked not to be named as the information isn’t public, Bloomberg News reported. The properties are held outside European real-estate subsidiary Hemisphere, which is disposing of assets as part of a debt-restructuring deal, they said.
The National Treasury allocated 5 billion rand ($350 million) to help South African Airways to repay debt, but said the state-owned airline will have to engage with creditors to restructure almost double that amount, Bloomberg News reported. SAA has 14.2 billion rand of repayments due by March, the Treasury said in its mid-term budget statement Wednesday. The company “is not generating sufficient cash to repay its total debt, and will have to negotiate with lenders to refinance or extend maturity dates,’’ it said.
Steinhoff said on Wednesday investors who are suing the crisis-hit firm had agreed to suspend litigation until next year, allowing the retailer time to focus on its recovery, Reuters reported. The lawsuit brought in the Netherlands was aimed at compensating investors for the more than 14 billion euros ($16 billion) wiped off Steinhoff’s market value since the retailer uncovered accounting irregularities last year. Steinhoff said the suspension of legal proceedings would be until April 3, 2019.