South Africa

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.

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.

Steinhoff International Holding NV agreed to sell its Austrian furniture retailer Rudolf Leiner GmbH and real estate assets to billionaire Rene Benko’s Signa Holding GmbH to prevent a looming insolvency of the unit, Bloomberg News reported. The conditional offer could plug a cash-draining hole for Steinhoff, which has been trying to restructure the unprofitable Austrian business also known as Kika/Leiner amid fierce competition from bigger rival XXXLutz and Sweden’s Ikea. Kika/Leiner’s fate has hung in the balance since credit insurers withdrew guarantees for its suppliers earlier this month.

Shareholders in Steinhoff on Wednesday sued Deloitte for damages in a Dutch court, accusing the auditor of failures in the accounting scandal that brought the South Africa-based global retailer to the brink of collapse, the Financial Times reported. VEB, the Dutch investor rights group, said it brought the lawsuit in the Rotterdam district court as Deloitte had “seriously failed in its statutory task as auditor” by giving an unqualified audit to Steinhoff before the owner of the UK’s Poundland and Mattress Firm in the US revealed a black hole of more than €5bn in its accounts.

Shareholders in Steinhoff on Wednesday sued Deloitte for damages in a Dutch court, accusing the auditor of failures in the accounting scandal that brought the South Africa-based global retailer to the brink of collapse, the Financial Times reported. VEB, the Dutch investor rights group, said it brought the lawsuit in the Rotterdam district court as Deloitte had “seriously failed in its statutory task as auditor” by giving an unqualified audit to Steinhoff before the owner of the UK’s Poundland and Mattress Firm in the US revealed a black hole of more than €5bn in its accounts.

Credit insurers have decided to withdraw insurance cover for South African retailer Steinhoff International's loans, Steinhoff's Austrian subsidiary Kika/Leiner said on Monday. "The loss of the credit insurance is a result of the Steinhoff crisis," Kika/Leiner said in a statement. Steinhoff, whose retail chains include Britain's Poundland, Mattress Firm in the U.S. and Conforama in France, has been fighting to recover from the fallout from accounting irregularities discovered in December, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

Employees at South African audit firm Nkonki Inc. applied to a Pretoria court to block the company’s liquidation and have it put into administration instead so there’s a chance the business can be rescued, according to a court filing. The auditing profession is under pressure in South Africa with Nkonki and the local unit of KPMG LLP losing clients after being linked to the politically connected Gupta family, Bloomberg News reported. Deloitte & Touche LLP is also under scrutiny for having audited scandal-ridden South African retailer Steinhoff International Holdings NV.

South Africa's new president Cyril Ramaphosa will need to call on all his dealmaking skills to overhaul ailing state-owned firms and tackle land reform if he wants to capitalize on Moody's decision not to downgrade the country's debt to junk, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Moody's said its decision to keep South Africa's rating at investment grade reflected its view the country's institutions would regain strength under more transparent and predictable policies - though the new government had to stay on track.