Mining company’s assets cover Gupta loan, says IDC
THE Industrial Development Corporation is confident it will claw back its multimillion-rand loan plus interest from the Gupta family, which intends to exit local investments this year.
The IDC is still owed R75-million. It lent R250-million to the Gupta-owned Oakbay Resources and Energy — nearly the entire R270-million price tag — to buy Shiva Uranium, a uranium, gold mining and processing services company six years ago.
The Gupta family are close friends with President Jacob Zuma and business partners with his son Duduzane.
The loan was converted into part equity and the interest rate controversially reduced to prime plus 2% after the company failed to meet the initial April 2013 deadline for repayment. The IDC took a 3.57% stake in Oakbay in November 2014.
This week the state-owned developmental lender reported a 254% surge in impairments year on year.
IDC spokesman Mandla Mpangase said the Oakbay facility was not among those impaired.
Mpangase said interest on the loan was R37-million and this was expected to rise to R57-million by March 2018.
He said Shiva Uranium, which owes the interest, would remain indebted to the IDC irrespective of a possible change in shareholding in Oakbay.
Earlier this year, in written responses to parliamentary questions, IDC OUT: Former Oakbay chairman Atul Gupta CEO Geoffrey Qhena said an instalment of R37.5-million was due at the end of June.
Mpangase said this week that “all payments have been honoured”. He added that the outstanding loan was fully secured in the assets of the company.
Gupta family spokesman Gary Naidoo was not available to comment at the time of going to press.
The IDC said impairments were R1.6-billion for the year to March compared to R459-million a year ago.
Impairments were aggravated by lower dividends from investments in the resources sector, which has been hit by a slump in commodity prices.
At its results presentation in Port Elizabeth on Tuesday, chief financial officer Nonkululeko Veleti said the IDC intended to reduce its ratio of impairments to its total funding “to below 15% in the long term”.
Qhena said: “It doesn’t mean that now it’s going to be impossible to get access to the IDC. But we’ll be much closer than before to our clients.”
He said the IDC would improve its due diligence procedures in a bid to identify warning signs and launch intervention strategies earlier.
The results presentation coincided with the sod-turning ceremony for the Beijing Automotive International Corporation’s vehicle assembly plant at Coega, which will produce 50 000 SUVs, vans and light motor vehicles in 2018.
The IDC will invest R1-billion and hold 35% of shares in the venture. BAIC, China’s fourth-largest automotive firm by sales, will match the investment and take 65% ownership.
About 60% of the production will be exported to other countries.
The venture will create 2 500 jobs during construction, which begins in December. About 1 000 positions will be available on the assembly line.
The venture will improve the automotive industry’s contribution to GDP by a percentage point to 8%, the partners said.