Land Bank makes another loss, debt plan not yet finalised

24th August 2021

By: Reuters

  

Font size: - +

South Africa's Land Bank made another loss in the year to the end of March and is yet to finalise a debt restructuring plan, the bank said on Tuesday.

The state-owned agricultural bank, which defaulted on its debt in April 2020 and missed a restructuring deadline in March 2021, is one of a handful of loss-making state firms that are placing huge strains on the country's stretched public finances.

Separately, state arms manufacturer Denel told a different parliamentary committee it had made a net loss of more than R360-million in the financial year that started in April, and it owed more than R630-million to its employees and R900-million to suppliers.

Land Bank lost roughly R1.1-billion in the 2020/21 financial year, it disclosed in a presentation to a parliamentary committee, versus a R1.3-billion loss the previous year.

The bank said it had sent draft term sheets and commitment agreements to its lenders, but negotiations were still ongoing.

Land Bank received a 3 billion rand government bailout last year and was allocated a further 7 billion rand in this year's February budget.

By March it had made a capital repayment of approximately R4.2-billion to lenders, and it plans to make another R3-billion payment by September.

Denel makes military equipment including missiles and ammunition for South Africa's armed forces and export customers but has faced a liquidity crisis.

It added that its latest projections for the 2021/22 financial year indicated negative cashflow of R600-million if no mitigation action was taken.

The company is in talks with the government about another bailout, as it aims to become profitable under a new business model within the next five years.

Edited by Reuters

Comments

The content you are trying to access is only available to subscribers.

If you are already a subscriber, you can Login Here.

If you are not a subscriber, you can subscribe now, by selecting one of the below options.

For more information or assistance, please contact us at subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za.

Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):

Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format

Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):

All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.

Already a subscriber?

Forgotten your password?

MAGAZINE & ONLINE

SUBSCRIBE

RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA

SUBSCRIBE

CORPORATE PACKAGES

CLICK FOR A QUOTATION