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.
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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.
South African retailer Steinhoff, has asked creditors for a one-month extension relating to its debt restructuring as it negotiates documents required to implement the plan, it said on Monday. An accounting scandal wiped more than 90 percent off Steinhoff’s market value and forced it to sell assets to generate working capital. Creditors agreed in July to hold off on their debt claims for three years, throwing the company a lifeline, Reuters reported. As part of the deal, all parties sought to start restructuring within three months of the lock-up agreement date of July 20.
South African construction firm Group Five will cut more jobs as it seeks to trim loss-making divisions, it said on Tuesday, highlighting an industry-wide slump in its home market that has left many companies fighting for survival, Reuters reported. South African construction companies have been hit hard in recent years as stagnant economic growth has hobbled public infrastructure spending, prompting some of them to file business rescues, similar to chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States.
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When President Trump tweeted in August that South Africa was engaged in “the large scale killing” of white farmers to seize their land, the nation’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, didn’t respond personally. A fabricated accusation from the leader of the free world was the least of his problems, Bloomberg News reported. Ramaphosa probably felt his time was better spent doing his job.
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Steinhoff International Holdings NV ex-Chief Executive Officer Markus Jooste said the origin of the global retailer’s near-collapse was a protracted dispute with former partner Andreas Seifert, the latest example of a senior figure blaming others for the crisis, Bloomberg News reported. The legal battle with Seifert, mainly over the valuation and ownership of German furniture chain POCO, led to investigations by European regulators and tax authorities that attracted the attention of Steinhoff’s auditors at Deloitte LLP, Jooste told lawmakers in Cape Town on Wednesday.
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South Africa’s unexpected slump into a second recession in almost a decade has boosted fears of another round of credit-rating downgrades that could see a sell-off in local-currency bonds, Bloomberg News reported. The cost of insuring the country’s debt against default for five years using credit-default swaps spiked to the highest since November 2016 while yields on the government’s benchmark local-currency bonds due in December 2026 rose to a nine-month high. The rand weakened the most against the dollar among major and emerging-market currencies.
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Steinhoff's board will meet over the next two days to discuss asset sales to boost cash flow and pay down debt, its chairwoman said on Wednesday, months after creditors of the South African retailer threw it a lifeline, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Steinhoff had been fighting for survival since December last year when it uncovered accounting irregularities that sent its shares crashing and left it scrambling for working capital.
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South Africa’s Land and Agricultural Development Bank has warned expropriating farm land without compensation could cost the government 41 billion rand ($2.8 billion) if it’s forced to repay the state company’s debt immediately, Bloomberg News reported. The lender has approximately 9 billion rand of debt that includes a standard market clause on expropriation as an event of default, the Land Bank’s Chairman Arthur Moloto said in the company’s annual report on Monday.
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