The business rescue practitioners at Highveld Steel and Vanadium will hold a meeting in early July to update creditors and shareholders of the progress being made regarding the sale of assets, following the failure of an earlier proposal to sell the business as a going concern. The meeting will take place at the ENSAfrica auditorium in Sandton at 10:30 on Monday July 11.
After International Resources Limited (IRL), of Hong Kong, China, failed to fulfil or waive outstanding conditions by January 31, the business rescue practitioners embarked on a process to sell individual components of the enterprise either outright or as going concerns.
The sales process could yield 10c to 15c in every rand owed to creditors. However, R300-million is also still owned in severance packages to many of the 2 200 employees retrenched after the IRL transaction collapsed. This outstanding amount would need to be paid ahead of any payments to creditors.
In addition, the State-owned Industrial Development Corporation has instituted court action to ensure that it was not relegated to a “concurrent creditor” in the event of liquidation.
There is believed to be interest from market participants in buying individual components of Highveld as going concerns, including the structural mill, which could operate using inputs sourced from other steelmakers.
It is hoped that, if some aspects of the business are restarted, as many as 400 direct jobs could be created, as well as additional indirect jobs.
There was also said to be interest in Highveld’s furnaces and kilns, while work is also believed to be advancing on the sale of so-called nonstrategic assets, such as the excess spares and consumables, as well as Highveld’s dumps.