TONGAAT HULETT DOING WELL IN MENDING DEBT

MBABANE – Tongaat Hulett, the company that sold Tambankulu estates to PSPF for E372 million, is reportedly doing well in terms of mending its R10.1 billion debt with South African Banks.

As part of the exercise to control the debt, the company has since resolved to get rid of its starch and glucose operation and focus on the turnaround of sugar operations. This exercise resulted in disposing the Tambankulu estates to PSPF. PSPF is the Public Service Pension Fund, a government Parastatal. Latest reports coming from SA indicate that the company has since managed to raise R8.1 billion and praises have to go to the new executive. The new development Tongaat come at a time when PSPF is still waiting for approval for the transaction of the E372 million from Eswatini Competition Commission (ESCC). Elkan Makhanya, Corporate Services Manager at PSPF, said they had not received any response from ESCC regarding the approval of the transaction.

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This was also confirmed by the ESCC Chief Executive Officer Muzi Dlamini on Thursday when called to comment. “We are still busy engaging relevant stakeholders to address concerns if there were any. We have to investigate and prevent unfair competition. We have not concluded anything yet. We are still within the mandatory period of 90 days,” he said. According to PSPF website, the function of the commission is to monitor, regulate, control and prevent acts or behaviour which are likely to affect competition amongst businesses in the country.

According to a business report published by www.ilo.co.za on Wednesday, after years characterised by wrongdoing and mismanagement, Tongaat is on the mend. The report states that the company’s new executives were doing a sterling job by swelling its assets, and loss-making business units have returned to profitability. Creditors are, however, in control. “The South African debt is secured by Tongaat’s South African assets and the Mozambican assets in that country. I attempted to de-consolidate the Zimbabwean operations from Tongaat’s other operations at the end of Tongaat’s recent financial year (March 31, 2020). My analysis indicates that Tongaat’s share of the Zimbabwean net asset value (NAV) amounted to R21 per Tongaat share, while Tongaat’s NAV of the other operations amounted to a negative R41 per share.

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