JSE raps Dorbyl on knuckles for late report

A BAD year for Dorbyl got a little worse yesterday when the JSE publicly reprimanded it for failing to submit its annual report within the six-month period stipulated by the listings requirements.

Because of the delay, Dorbyl’s listing has been annotated with an “RE” and the company has been warned that if it failed to submit its annual report by October 31, its listing would be suspended.

In a Stock Exchange News Service announcement released yesterday, the JSE said the company faced the possibility of having its listing terminated.

The past 12 months for Dorbyl have seen major changes in its shareholder profile and a significant slump in its operating performance.

The most recent development was last month’s announcement that African Dune had made an offer to all shareholders at 65c a share. The offer was made following African Dune’s acquisition of a 41.4 percent block of shares from RE:CM, Reef Group and Metkor.

In February long-term shareholder Metkor, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Remgro and held 41.4 percent of Dorbyl, announced that it had sold a 14.9 percent stake to RE:CM and Calibre and a 20.1 percent stake to the Reef Group. This transaction left Metkor with a 6.5 percent stake.

Although Metkor had sold effective control of the company, the way in which the February deal was structured meant that the buyers did not have to make an offer to minority shareholders.

Metkor did not reveal at what price the Dorbyl shares were sold to RE:CM and the Reef Group, but merely stated that the stake had been sold for a “nominal amount”.

RE:CM would not disclose yesterday at what price it had purchased the shares in February but did confirm that it sold the shares to African Dune “for more than we paid for them”.

Within days of announcing that African Dune was making a 65c a share offer to minorities, Dorbyl issued a further SENS statement notifying shareholders that Tremtrade had acquired Dorbyl shares and now held a 11.6 percent stake in the company.

In June Dorbyl issued its provisional condensed results for the 12 months to March, which revealed that the loss before tax had surged to R76.7 million from R22.2m a year earlier. This was equivalent to a loss of R2.04 a share compared with the 86.1c a share loss in 2011.

The net asset value of the group, which has sold off the bulk of its assets and now has just one operating asset, Guestro Castings, slumped to R1.18 a share in March from R3.15 a share a year earlier.

At the time that it released its provisional results in June, management stated that its key objectives for the year ahead included increasing turnover by increasing prices by 25 percent; improving operating efficiencies by focusing on the production line and labour costs; and reducing the scrap rate from a historic 23 percent to less than 10 percent.

Dorbyl’s shares were untraded at 67c yesterday.