12 January 2024
Tongaat Hulett will not be liquidated after a business rescue plan was provisionally approved and accepted.
This was announced shortly after business rescue practitioners, creditors, prospective buyers and other stakeholders met on Thursday to discuss the future of the embattled sugar and property company.
Vision, a consortium led by businessman Robert Gumede, had the only remaining plan on the table after the RGS Group, a diversified Mozambican company with interests in sugar cane, logistics and trade, withdrew its bid earlier in the week.
Vision will take over Tongaat Hulett’s debt of R8 billion to creditors with this transaction. During the online meeting, there was a vote to approve amendments to the proposed business rescue plan, then a vote was taken on Vision’s plan.
Questions had been raised at previous meetings about whether Vision had enough money to take over Tongaat Hulett.
The Durban high court had previously ordered that a vote on the amended business rescue plans be held by Thursday. Tongaat Hulett would have faced possible liquidation if Vision’s business rescue plan had not been accepted by the company’s creditors.
African Farming has been reporting for some time on Tongaat Hulett’s years-long financial struggle, including when the company was placed in voluntary business rescue on October 27, 2022. Several bidders tried and failed to acquire part or all of the company.
Disastrous
Dr Thomas Funke, CEO of SA Caneghrowers, previously said that if Tongaat were to be liquidated it would have “catastrophic” consequences. The termination of payments to producers supplying sugar cane to Tongaat would be disastrous, he said.
• This is a developing story.
