RBA Holdings set to be liquidated

THE ATTEMPTED business rescue of RBA Holdings appears to have failed and the company is set to be liquidated.

Trevor Glaum, RBA’s business rescue practitioner, confirmed yesterday that he would be applying to the Western Cape High Court today, or as soon as possible thereafter, to discontinue RBA’s business rescue proceedings and to convert the proceedings into liquidation proceedings.

Glaum said he would be applying for RBA to be placed in final liquidation and to direct the master of the court to appoint provisional liquidators on an urgent basis.

He said a number of RBA directors had resigned, including Riaan Roos, Evita Nyandoro and Martin Nienaber.

RBA subsequently announced that Christine Glover, Ken Hopkins and Pieter Lessingh had also resigned with.

Glaum added that he had nothing further to report on the future of RBA at this stage.

RBA Holdings was established in 1997 and the company and wholly-owned subsidiary RBA Developments was placed in business rescue by the Johannesburg High Court in February last year. Three additional subsidiaries, RBA Building Projects, RBA Homes and RBA Executive Homes, were subsequently also placed in business rescue last April.

The business rescue application was lodged by the trustees of Old Mutual’s Housing Impact Fund South Africa Trust (Hifsa), a shareholder and creditor in the company.

Agreement

RBA Holdings in 2014 entered into an agreement with Hifsa for a loan of R55 million, with the trust subscribing for 550million shares at 10c each in the share capital of RBA.

The company received the R55m in November 2014.

Hifsa last year also applied to the JSE to the suspension in RBA’s shares and trading in the company’s shares remain suspended. RBA said last November when it released its financial results for the six months to June that it was uncertain whether it would continue as a going concern in the year ahead.

It said business rescue plans for RBA Homes, RBA Building Projects and RBA Executive Homes were approved by creditors in August but Glaum was still preparing business rescue plans for publication and approval by creditors for RBA and RBA Developments.

Glaum obtained approval from creditors to extend the date by which the business rescue plans for RBA Holdings and RBA Developments had to be published to end-March this year. RBA Holdings in November reported a net loss of R10.1m for the six months to June compared with a net profit of R1.8m in the previous corresponding period.

The company said its total liabilities at end-June exceeded its total assets by R60.4m while in the prior period its total assets exceeded its total liabilities by R43.2m.

Revenue grew by 55percent to R218.8m from R140.9m.

Operating profit improved by almost 33percent to R9.7m from the R7.3m operating loss in the prior period. Operating expenses, including business rescue and restructuring costs of R5.1m increased by 15percent to R44.5m.

Excluding business rescue and restructuring cost of R5.1m compared to zero in the previous year, operating expenses increased by 2percent.