quote:

Originally posted by jdollar:
As long as BEE and not skill and experience is the guiding principle, ANY effort is doomed going forward- and BEE is not going away...

Agreed. There is quite a lot of movement in country at the moment regarding disgruntled white South Africans regarding that, and so there should be. Sure, it affected many in the past as far as getting turned down for jobs because of race. It's really hit them hard now, where financial support is desperately needed and being denied to them by the government because of race. What is the difference between BEE and the policies of the old regime?
I'm seeing groups being created where white businesses are proclaiming to only do business with other white owned businesses going forward, calling it W.E.E
Certainly not a healthy outlook when you are trying to create unity.

South Africa has racism in reverse!

And until they can get rid of it, it is not going to get any better.

DUKEAR X 2. Be Well, Packy.

After you go bankrupt, there are no assets to "take over" unless the creditors have been paid in full ... anything else is larceny, aka conversion, or fraudulent conveyance.

Except in Africa, where it is business as usual....

quote:

Originally posted by Russ Gould:
After you go bankrupt, there are no assets to "take over" unless the creditors have been paid in full ... anything else is larceny, aka conversion, or fraudulent conveyance.

Well, what do you think happened with GM during the Obama administration. They completely ignored the preferred creditors in favor of the unions.

MAY 08, 2020 / 11:10 AM / UPDATED 6 MINUTES AGO

South African court orders SAA rescue team to halt layoffs

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa’s Labour Court ordered administrators trying to rescue cash-strapped South African Airways (SAA) to halt layoffs on Friday, siding with two trade unions who had argued in court that the process was unfair.

State-owned SAA has been fighting for its survival since entering a form of bankruptcy protection in December, with its fortunes deteriorating further when the coronavirus pandemic forced it to halt all commercial passenger flights and the government refused to provide further funding for turnaround efforts.

The administrators started consultations with unions in March about layoffs, but two unions - the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) and the South African Cabin Crew Association (SACCA) - said those consultations should wait until the administrators had presented a business rescue plan.

The Labour Court sided with the unions, ruling that the layoff notices were “procedurally unfair” and ordering administrators to withdraw them. Administrators are permitted to offer voluntary severance packages, the court said.

The administrators, who had suspended a deadline for staff to agree layoff terms while the Labour Court made its decision, said they were considering the judgment.

The administrators have until the end of the month to draft a rescue plan for SAA, which has not made a profit since 2011 and has received bailouts worth more than 20 billion rand ($1.1 billion) over the past three years.

Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan on Wednesday said the government wanted to avoid a liquidation or fire sale of SAA assets, preferring to see SAA restructured into a new airline.

SAA on Friday said that it will continue to operate repatriation and cargo flights “during the month of May and beyond”.

Reporting by Alexander Winning; Editing by David Goodman and Louise Heavens

Looks like they might be getting another bailout.

https://onemileatatime.com/sou...ets-another-bailout/

South African Airways can still be saved with funding: administrators

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African Airways (SAA) can still be saved if it gets the necessary funding, the state-owned airline’s administrators said on Wednesday, adding they were talking to the government about a potential restructuring.

The comments in a letter to affected parties seen by Reuters mark a shift in tone from a recent appearance before a parliamentary committee, when the administrators said a wind-down of the business was a probable outcome.
SAA has been fighting for its survival since entering business rescue - a local form of bankruptcy protection - in December, after almost a decade of financial losses.

The government is still pressing for it to be rescued in some form, but its problems have been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, which has pushed even once-profitable airlines across the world into financial distress.
In late March, SAA suspended all commercial passenger flights as the government imposed one of Africa’s strictest anti-coronavirus lockdowns. Last month, the government said it would not provide further funding, pushing the business to the brink of collapse.

“There is still a reasonable prospect of rescuing SAA, subject to the receipt of ... requisite funding,” the letter read. “That will be set out in the business rescue plan to be published in due course.”

The administrators are still expected to push for a wind-down if more funding is not forthcoming.

A spokesman for the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) did not have an immediate comment. A presentation by the National Treasury and DPE in parliament on Wednesday said various funding options were being considered.
In February the government said it had set aside 16.4 billion rand ($940 million) to pay SAA’s guaranteed debt and interest costs, and the presentation said officials would talk to lenders to try to spread maturities over the next three fiscal years, with the first payment at the end of July.

Earlier on Wednesday, the administrators had denied that SAA was aiming to resume flights in mid-June between Johannesburg and Cape Town, its only domestic route, rejecting a company statement from a day earlier.
They said they had not vetted the statement.

“The position around the cessation of flights remains as is until SAA has a better sense of what the level 3 lockdown means in terms of domestic air travel,” the administrators said, referring to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s loosening of COVID-19 restrictions, which included opening up domestic air travel for business purposes.

SAA’s roughly 5,000 employees have been on unpaid leave since the beginning of May, and the administrators have said the airline does not have enough cash to pay salaries.

Derek Mans, aviation organiser at the Solidarity trade union, said the only money employees can expect to receive this month is from the Unemployment Insurance Fund.

Officials have floated the idea of creating a new airline from the ashes of the old SAA, although aviation experts are sceptical given the stretched state of the public purse and the state of airlines everywhere.

Industry groups including the International Air Transport Association (IATA) on Wednesday urged the government to provide financial support to the aviation sector to mitigate the impact of COVID-19.

The IATA estimated revenues generated by airlines in South Africa would fall by $3 billion in 2020.

Additional reporting by Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo and Wendell Roelf; Editing by Joe Bavier, David Evans and Mark Potter

SAA bankruptcy administrators to submit rescue plan Friday

South African Airways' bankruptcy administrators will submit a business rescue plan to the government, creditors and labor unions on Friday and will begin discussions on it next week.

The so-called Business Rescue Practitioners have asked for an extension to their contract until June 8 to complete the work, they said in a statement.

The state-owned airline has been unprofitable since 2011 and has been surviving on government bailouts. While the rescue team has been informed that the National Treasury will not provide further funds, Pravin Gordhan, the country's public enterprises minister, has insisted that the airline continue to exist in some form.

The government has proposed reviving the airline to the administrators, who had earlier planned to wind it up. Its submission has now been incorporated into the document due to be discussed, the administrators said.

Translation of the business rescue plan = give us more money to throw down the same BEE rat hole. Stick a fork in SAA and take it off the braii- it’s done!

This thread should have been titled DEATH OF A COUNTRY.

South Africa had apartheid, but a successful economy.

Now South Africa has apartheid, but pointing the opposite way, and a totally failed economy!

Do you really expect anything the government runs to succeed??

Keep on dreaming!

SA isn't gonna be let it go down. It would be a large loss of face for the "Empowerment government" !

And one less major entity to steal from.......

.

Leaked Document States South African Airways Bailout Agreed

by Tomos Howells June 1 at 9:40 AM

LONDON – In a dramatic twist of events, a leaked email from South Africa’s opposition party has stated that a new bailout has been agreed upon by the state for the country’s struggling airline that was placed into administration in December 2019.

The announcement today follows a dramatic U-turn in the future of the airline following months of the South African government refusing to bail the carrier out, which at the time seemed like it would not last the coming months.

The airline has failed to make a profit since 2011 and has relied on the government bailout funds to keep it going over the last nine years. What followed over that time was a dramatic and fast-planned restructuring that unfortunately did not have the desired effect to save the carrier from liquidation.

Part of the restructuring plan that the company went through was the retirement plans for its ageing A340 fleet and the leasing of the news Airbus flagship aircraft the A350XWB; part of the changes brought into the carrier also saw it cut ties with the unions that represent its staff.

The airline announced back in April that it was setting up to lay off 4,700 workers as part of cost-cutting measures in a final attempt to save the airline.

While there has been no official confirmation made about the details of the leaked email, it states that the government would be happy to provide funds for a bailout of the airline following the laid out plans of restructuring that have been presented to the carrier in a draft document.

The document has listed a complete breakdown of the new SA that will see the airline moved to be controled by a holding company called “New HoldCo” that the document states will also oversee the running of SAA City Centre, SAA Technical, air Chefs and Mango Airlines (JE).

It is believed that the South African government has “agreed to” provide the funding for the following steps towards recovering the airline: Should this draft plan go ahead, it would be of the largest government-funded airline restructures ever to be undertaken; however, with no official announcements made from the government at this time, the leaked document and information is nothing more than speculation.

The document goes on to state that the new company would go on to make a loss of R19.9b over the next three years but it did show that there would be a steady decline in the amount of loss the company makes each year, with the plan to have the company just under half its yearly loss by year three.

A break down on the year by year loss forecasts:
Year 1 – R8,1 billion loss-
Year 2 – R7,5 billion loss-
Year 3 – R4,3 billion loss

Without a formal confirmation, it will be hard for the future of SA, but what is clear is that this draft document is not going to be a guarantee that the airline will survive.

It goes on to say that there can be no forecast for accurate cash injections in a post-COVID-19 world with carriers around the globe struggling to survive and making cuts in staff and fleet size where they can.

As the viability of the proposed plan is uncertain until an official announcement and confirmation are made, the question will always be, is it too late for the stolen airline that has not made a profit since 2011?

Or is a post-COVID-19 world the perfect place for a struggling airline to once again find its footing on the global market?

South African Airways rescue plan underway
AAP • AAP

Monday, 1 June 2020 7:00 pm AEST

The South African government has agreed to fund a restructuring of South African Airways (SAA), if a business rescue plan for the struggling state-owned airline is adopted, a copy of the draft plan shows.

SAA entered business rescue - a local form of bankruptcy protection - in December, after which administrators took over the running of the airline and have been working on a plan to save the business.

The draft plan said the government had agreed to make a working capital injection, which the administrators estimated at not less than 2 billion rand ($A170.5 million), fund employee layoffs, which could cost up to 2 billion rand, and make an allocation of at least 600 million rand towards the repayment of general concurrent creditors.

That is on top of 16.4 billion rand which the government had already set aside in its February budget to repay SAA's guaranteed debt and cover debt-service costs.

A spokeswoman for the administrators confirmed the draft plan was genuine but said: "It would be irresponsible to comment on the draft plan which was leaked to the media. It is for discussion purposes only, and we await comment from the affected persons."

A spokesman for the Department of Public Enterprises, the ministry responsible for SAA, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

State-owned SAA has not made a profit since 2011 and has received more than 20 billion rand in bailouts in the past three years.

The government said in April it would not provide further funding for rescue efforts, pushing the business to the brink of collapse. But in recent weeks, officials have stepped up pressure on the administrators to come up with a plan to salvage SAA.

This will do nothing to save SSA, but there will be a lot of new Mercedes driving around SA.

quote:

Originally posted by Opus1:
This will do nothing to save SSA, but there will be a lot of new Mercedes driving around SA.

And the former CEO will be placed on administrative leave with a huge bonus and continued salary......

.

TIA Buddy.

Flying SAA is simply supporting the hugely corrupt government of SA and it’s racist policy of BEE.I will spend my money elsewhere! issers

South African Airways to Receive $1.2 Billion Government Bailout

by Victor Shalton | Jun 2, 2020 | 10:45 AM

The South African government has agreed to finance the restructuring of South African Airways (SAA) as indicated in a copy of a draft plan shown on Monday.

The draft plan involves a government agreement to spend R21 billion ($1.2 billion) to restructure SAA. According to the draft plan, a working capital injection is estimated at not less than R2 billion to restart operations once there are relaxed travel restrictions brought up by the coronavirus pandemic.

In addition, another R2 billion will be required to fund employee retrenchment and a further necessary allocation of R17 billion with at least R600 million towards repayment of general concurrent creditors, according to Bloomberg.

The draft plan is still subject to discussions with the affected persons and the team has until June 8 to finalize the proposal.

Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan who was to oversee the turning around of the airline was in complete objection of the new draft plan and had previously announced his ambition of creating a new airline at the start of this month.

The rescue practitioners had described the prospects of restructuring the struggling airline as “reasonable” and dependent on necessary funding.

“It is the considered view of the business rescue practitioners that there is still a reasonable prospect of rescuing SAA, subject to the receipt of unequivocal commitment thereto and the requisite funding,” said the practitioners.

The rescue team had earlier warned of not having enough funds to pay the salaries of all staff for the month after their earliest request for more state funding for the airline was denied, which lead to the team subsequently proposing firing all of the airline staff to stave off liquidation.

“SAA does not have sufficient funds available to pay salaries to all of its employees and, in fact, does not have sufficient funds to pay certain of its post-business rescue costs,” said the practitioners.

The state-owned airline has been drawing up some political grandstanding and building uncertainties over its future, spending nearly six months in the business rescue process -a local form of bankruptcy protection. The carrier entered the business rescue program in December 2019 in which business rescue practitioners Les Matuson and Siviwe Dongwana took over the running of the cash strapped airline with an aim of restructuring it.

It is also understood that the practitioners were in the advanced stages of drawing up a draft plan before the country went on lockdown on March 26.

“Unfortunately, the draft plan for a restructured airline which was near complete could not be finalized owing to the impact of the coronavirus crisis which nullified all the assumptions on income projections,” noted the practitioners.

The new funding for SAA will now bring an end to the impasse between the government and business rescue team after months of hiatus over the future of the airline with earlier reports indicating the possible cease of operations for the Star Alliance member in favor of a new national airline formed on the debris of SAA.

Although most of its passenger fleet remains grounded, SAA has continued to operate repatriation flights including 56 repatriation flights to six continents during the lockdown period.

SAA "rescue plan approved today...

http://www.tourismupdate.co.za...n-railroaded-through

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African Airways (SAA) creditors approved a rescue plan for the struggling airline on Tuesday that requires at least 10 billion rand ($596 million) in new funding, throwing the ball into the government’s court to come up with the cash.

State-owned SAA, which last made a profit in 2011, entered bankruptcy protection in December and suspended commercial passenger flights in March when the government imposed one of the world’s strictest lockdowns to contain the new coronavirus.

Fierce wrangling between the airline’s administrators, the government and trade unions has complicated rescue efforts, which delayed the publication of a restructuring plan until last month.

That plan envisages scaling back the airline’s fleet and shedding jobs before gradually ramping up operations as the disruption caused by COVID-19 eases.

Administrator Siviwe Dongwana told a creditor meeting the plan had been approved by 86% of voting interests.

“It is an important step forward for the airline and provides much-needed certainty towards a restructured SAA,” he added in a statement.

Dongwana said the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE), the ministry responsible for SAA, had said it would give the administrators a letter with a funding commitment on Wednesday, in time for a deadline stipulated in the rescue plan.

The DPE told Reuters last week it was on track to make the funding commitment.

It is not yet clear where funding will come from, after the finance minister allocated no new money to SAA in an emergency budget. The government says it has been talking to investors and potential partners, but has given few details.

The DPE’s acting director-general, Kgathatso Tlhakudi, told the creditor meeting the government should announce preferred strategic equity partners soon for SAA Group and its business units. He added an interim board of directors for the new SAA would be revealed soon.

Reporting by Alexander Winning; editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise and Mark Potter

Revamped South African Airways could be run independently, says Gordhan
By Reuters Staff

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa is considering an independent board for its ailing national airline, with a shareholder structure similar to that of part state-owned telecoms firm Telkom, a senior government minister told the local eNCA news channel on Sunday.

Debt-ridden South African Airways (SAA) has been in a form of bankruptcy protection since December. Its creditors approved a rescue plan last week that involves scaling down its fleet, shedding thousands of jobs and a commitment of over 10 billion rand ($599.6 million) from the government

“Telkom is an interesting model that we could actually look at as we go forward,” Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan said, adding that the new SAA cannot be run by a “bunch of amateurs”.

He did not specify if the revamped airline will be a listed entity.

Telkom SA (TKGJ.J), among the top three telecom service providers in Africa's most industrialised country, is run independently and not bound by government guidelines set up for most South African sate-owned enterprises.

The government directly holds a 37% stake in the listed entity and state-owned fund manager Public Investment Corp. owns around 15%. The rest is owned by institutional investors and the public.

Gordhan said the government was still trying to secure the 10 billion rand required for the business rescue plan to succeed. “Now where it comes from, what form it comes in is something is still being worked on.”

The public and finance ministries committed to finding the funds in a letter to the airline’s administrators seen by Reuters last Thursday. This is in addition to more than 16 billion rand the finance ministry set aside in its February budget to repay SAA’s guaranteed debt and debt-service costs.

He reiterated that the restructured airline will have a strategic partner, professional aviation managers and a more simplified salary structure.

Reporting by Promit Mukherjee; editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise

Telkom is 52% owned by the SA government. Who in their right mind would invest in a company majority owned by such a corrupt and incompetent entity?

South Africa has not committed to fund SAA rescue plan, finance minister says.By Alexander Winning

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - The South African government has not committed to fund a restructuring plan for struggling South African Airways (SAA), Finance Minister Tito Mboweni said in court papers seen by Reuters on Tuesday.

Administrators took over SAA in December after almost a decade of financial losses, and last week creditors approved the restructuring plan, which requires at least 10 billion rand ($600 million) of new funds, on the understanding the government would find the necessary cash.

Mboweni said in an affidavit filed in the High Court that funding options the government might explore included approaching institutions for investment of pension funds, private equity or other partners who might want a shareholding in a restructured SAA.

The minister was responding to a court case launched by opposition party the Democratic Alliance, which wants to block Mboweni from using emergency powers to channel more public funds to rescue the airline.

Mboweni and Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan sent a letter last week to SAA’s administrators committing to “mobilising funding” for the plan.

Mboweni said in his affidavit that no definitive decisions had been taken on how funds would be sourced for SAA. He said he had not used his powers to authorise using funds from the National Revenue Fund, nor was such a move imminent.

The finance ministry has not responded to a Reuters request for comment.

SAA’s administrators need certain conditions to be met by Wednesday for their restructuring plan to work.

One of them is that the government finds money for the plan, which envisages scaling back the airline’s fleet and shedding jobs before gradually ramping up operations as COVID-19 disruption eases.

In a document sent to trade unions over the weekend giving the rationale for the planned job cuts, the administrators said SAA had made a net loss of 5.5 billion rand in the year to end-March, with further losses incurred since.

The administrators plan to have terminated all SAA’s aircraft leases by the end of July, leaving it with nine Airbus A340 planes which are on sale, Louise Brugman, spokeswoman for the administrators told Reuters.

Reporting by Alexander Winning; Editing by Emma Rumney, Jane Merriman and Emelia Sithole-Matarise

Is there any way to invest in the Mercedes dealerships?