South Africa’s government won’t bail out 13 municipalities that lost about 1.65 billion rand ($119 million) they invested in VBS Mutual Bank before it collapsed in March, according to Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Zweli Mkhize, Bloomberg News reported. “All these monies were wiped out,” Mkhize said in an interview at Bloomberg’s Johannesburg offices on Friday.

The most important passage in Steinhoff International Holdings NV’s regulatory filing late Friday, was a section attesting that management still believes the retailer is a going concern. A formality for most companies, Steinhoff’s confidence that it can keep the lights on isn’t self-evident. The acquisitive South African group’s shares have lost almost all their value and its bonds trade at a steep discount following a warning of accounting regularities and the resignation of its chief executive, which triggered a liquidity crisis in December, a Bloomberg View reported.

Steinhoff International Holdings NV may have to compromise with creditors over the length of a debt-payment extension plan to win support for a deal that may keep the embattled retailer afloat, according to people familiar with the situation. The owner of Conforama in France and Mattress Firm in the U.S. is negotiating a two-year payment delay with bondholders and lenders that would include zero cash interest, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the talks are still ongoing, Bloomberg News reported. The South African company initially proposed a three-year payment postponement.

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.