Steinhoff has appointed a former KPMG partner to head restructuring efforts as it tries to rebuild its balance sheet in the wake of an accounting scandal, the Financial Times reported. The South Africa-based retail conglomerate said in January it was looking to appoint an “independent debt restructuring expert” as chief restructuring officer as part of a board overhaul following the departure of its most senior managers.

Steinhoff International Holdings NV said it has secured enough money to keep its businesses running in the immediate term and can now start talks with a broader group of creditors, Bloomberg News reported. The troubled South African retail group has arranged new credit lines for units in the U.K., U.S. and France as well as agreeing a restructuring of its Austrian division, it said in a presentation published on its website. The announcement came after a meeting with creditors in London on Friday to discuss progress stabilizing the business since it uncovered accounting irregularities on Dec.

South Africa appointed a new board at struggling utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd., with Jabu Mabuza becoming chairman, and ordered a new permanent chief executive officer to be named within three months. As well as the appointment of Telkom SA SOC Ltd. Chairman Mabuza, the government recommended former Land Bank chief Phakamani Hadebe as the acting CEO, it said in a statement. The move, designed to strengthen governance and management, follows a meeting between President Jacob Zuma and other key ministers on Friday to address urgent challenges at the firm, Bloomberg News reported.

Retailer Steinhoff’s South African lenders have backed a move to prop up its troubled European operations with liquidity from healthier South African subsidiaries as the group scrambles to close a funding gap, Reuters reported. A first instalment of 60 million euros ($73 million) of a total 200 million it is seeking will be received this week, Steinhoff said in a statement on Thursday, adding it was seeking consent for further instalments.

There is a “clear danger” that South Africa’s state-owned power utility, Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd., could default on its debt, S&P Global Ratings said. “We are very concerned about liquidity issues,” Konrad Reuss, the managing director of S&P for sub-Saharan Africa, said at an event in Johannesburg Thursday. Eskom is the biggest recipient of state guarantees at a time when domestic power demand is the lowest in more than 10 years and as South Africa’s finances buckle under lower tax revenue and rising debt, Bloomberg News reported.

South African Airways will meet a group of domestic lenders on Tuesday to negotiate the refinancing of about 6 billion rand ($423 million) in outstanding loans, according to its new chief executive officer, Bloomberg News reported. The banks have in principle agreed to extend the loan terms, Vuyani Jarana, who took the helm at the loss-making airline on Nov. 1, said during an interview at Bloomberg’s Johannesburg office on Monday. The group is led by Nedbank Group Ltd. and includes FirstRand Ltd., Standard Bank Group Ltd., Barclays Africa Group Ltd. and Investec Plc.

The rand and South African bonds extended declines as foreign investors dumped the country’s notes in the wake of government forecasts for higher public debt and wider budget deficits in the next three years, Bloomberg News reported. Stocks rose to a record as gains for rand hedges offset drops for banks and retailers. The nation’s currency extended its longest losing streak in a month, while the yield on benchmark 10-year notes rose to the highest in 16 months.

A Bloomberg News report that South Africa’s National Treasury is seeking as much as 100 billion rand ($7.5 billion) from the government workers’ pension fund to finance struggling state companies is untrue, Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba said. The Public Investment Corp., which manages the fund and has about 1.86 trillion rand in assets, has been asked by the Treasury to buy its entire 12 billion-rand stake in Telkom SA SOC Ltd. to pay for a bailout of South African Airways, two people with direct knowledge of the situation told Bloomberg News last week.

Debt and corruption scandals at Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. make the utility the biggest risk to South Africa’s economy and the government needs to replace its management, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said. Eskom plans to raise almost 340 billion rand ($26 billion) in the next five years, while meeting 413 billion rand of interest and debt repayments, which amount to 8 percent of South Africa’s gross domestic product, Bloomberg News reported.

Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. is prepared to inject as much as 5 billion rand ($386 million) to pay off bank debt owed by AfriSam Group Pty Ltd. and help South Africa’s second-biggest cement producer clinch a tie-up with larger rival PPC Ltd., according to two people familiar with the matter. The money from the African unit of the Canadian insurer will be used to repay bank loans and allow AfriSam to push through a new offer to PPC, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the details are private, Bloomberg News reported.