Star 2024-01-12

PICK N PAY announced a swathe of senior appointments and created a new retail division in a restructuring to fix its core grocery store brand and recover from its last massive decline in profit. CEO Sean Summers, appointed barely a month after the retailer reported a massive 97.5% decline in trading profit to only R31.8 million for the six months to August from R1.25 billion in the same 2022 period, said in a statement the appointments were a key step to return Pick n Pay supermarkets to growth, whilst also ensuring the Online, Boxer and Clothing continued to deliver. In an interview with Business Report, he said that the restructuring was the “most profound event” in their history, as changes were required for operations…

THE GOVERNMENT is working on presenting a compelling case to attract foreign investors to plough money into expanding South Africa’s electricity transmission network in a bid to deal with the energy crisis, at the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting in Davos next week. Minister of Electricity Dr Kgosientso Ramokgopa yesterday said that they wanted to “canvass” the views of private sector players, because they wanted to have an appreciation of the conditionalities they had in order to participate in such an arrangement. This comes as the country continue to be plagued by rotational power cuts as demand far outstrips supply due to Eskom’s inadequate coal-fired generation fleet. Ramokgopa said the government was finalising putting together a “model” for private sector participation in the expansion of the transmission grid, and…

If the company was forced into liquidation it would have had major socio-economic consequences TONGAAT Hulett’s lenders voted overwhelmingly in favour of the Vision Consortium’s bid to take southern Africa’s biggest sugar producer out of business rescue, ending a period of uncertainty for the more than 100-year-old company and its employees. Thousands of livelihoods in KwaZulu-Natal depend on Tongaat Hulett both directly or indirectly and if the company had been forced into liqui- dation it would have had major socio-economic consequences. One of three business rescue practitioners, Trevor Murgatroyd, said at the meeting the business rescue process had been difficult and challenging, and the vote was “a great milestone,” notwithstanding that there remained a great deal of “hard work ahead” for the company, and that this was likely to include…

THE VISION Consortium said yesterday that it was grateful its rescue plan for Tongaat Hulett had been approved and a team was in place with a plan to turn around, grow and diversify Southern Africa’s biggest sugar group. Tongaat Hulett is a key strategic asset in the SADC region, employing some 40 000 workers and working with more than 250 000 small scale cane growers, as well as numerous players across the sugar cane industry. The Vision Consortium is made up of entrepreneurial families led by both South African and Zimbabwean Robert Gumede and Rute Moyo, and international businesspersons Amre Youness and Nauman Khan. Vision said it had conducted a deep dive due-diligence in South Africa, Zim- babwe, Botswana and Mozambique, where Tongaat was the leading sugar company…

Tharisa, the LSE- and JSE-mining and metals company, said yesterday that it had increased mill throughput of 8.7% at 1 424.4kt, with improvements in both grade and recovery for platinum group metals (PGMs) and chrome concentrate in the quarter to December 31. PGM output consequently in- creased to 35.7koz (koz means thousand ounces) from 30.7koz in the fourth quarter of the 2023 financial year. Quarterly chrome output reached a record at 462.8kt from 413.4kt in the previous quarter. A major project is the development of the Karo Platinum Project, a low-cost, open-pit PGM asset located on the Great Dyke in Zimbabwe. The PGM basket price im- proved slightly by 1% to $1 344 (R25 090) an ounce, from $1 331/oz in the previous quarter. Average metallurgical…

THE NATIONAL Union of Mineworkers (NUM) yesterday advised mineworkers at Gold One, whose management insists that there will be no reversal to the mass employee dismissals at its South African operations, to end violent underground hostage and sit-in demonstrations and to respect legal processes. In October and December, mineworkers at Gold One refused to return to the surface after their underground shifts ended as they protested the miner’s refusal to acknowledge the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) as a labour union at the mine. The situation escalated when the sit-in turned into a violent hostage drama, a situation that threatened the well-being of other employees under other labour unions that were not part of the hostage protests and sit-ins. In December, workers who refused to participate were threatened…