Mayfair and creditors hearing later

Warren Thompson

Markus Jooste’s investment holding vehicles Mayfair Speculators and Mayfair Holdings have jointly agreed with their creditors to postpone the court hearing into their liquidation until April 30 this year to allow ongoing negotiations to continue.

This was confirmed by Absa on Wednesday: “The matter has been postponed to April 30 to give Mayfair Speculators and Mayfair Holdings time to present a ‘scheme of agreement proposal’ to all the creditors.” Together with Absa, Mayfair owes Investec and Sanlam Capital Markets approximately R1.5 billion.

The three banks jointly approached the Western Cape High Court in December last year to have Mayfair Speculators liquidated, after learning in a meeting with company representatives that the entity was “commercially and technically insolvent”.

Mayfair Speculators had, through a dividend in specie, transferred R1.5 billion worth of assets to its parent company Mayfair Holdings in August of last year, deliberately doing so to remove the assets from the reach of its creditors, according to papers filed by Absa.

Judge Desai had been scheduled to hear the matter on Thursday. Instead, lawyers representing the parties met in chambers and asked to have the hearing delayed until April 30 to allow negotiations to continue, an exercise which has already been underway for weeks and which will hopefully lead to an agreement being signed.

Christo Wiese, who had pledged and subsequently forfeited 14.49 million shares in Steinhoff as a guarantor to Mayfair’s credit facilities, confirmed to Moneyweb on Wednesday that he had not heard from Jooste since December 5 last year (when Jooste resigned as CEO of Steinhoff International), nor had any idea of his whereabouts.

Moneyweb

When Jabu Mabuza announced Eskom’s September 2017 interim results, he raised confidence in the utility. As he spoke of rooting out financial mismanagement, malfeasance and corruption, it was easy to be pulled into a feeling of optimism.

Notwithstanding all the investigations into corruption, the Eskom financials indicate a frightening erosion of economic wealth and substance. For example, in 2011 Eskom had R37.8 billion invested in securities. By 2017 this had been reduced to R6.7 billion.

Eskom’s liabilities have been escalating at a rapid pace, and I’m not sure the assets are keeping up. Whereas it’s been progressing with its capital build programme, including running up unnecessary expenditure and cost overruns, it has ended up with property, plant, equipment

The matter has been postponed to April 30 to give Mayfair Speculators and Mayfair Holdings time to present a ‘scheme of agreement proposal’ to all the creditors.

Absa Bank