Creditors have granted the embattled South African Airways (SAA) an extension to the deadline on when to publish its business rescue plan for scrutiny by statekholders, the SAA’s Business Rescue Practitioner Les Matuson said on Saturday.
The cash-strapped national carrier had until the 13 January to publish the plan but Matuson, along with his co-practitioner Siviwe Dongwana, met with the creditors and requested them to extend the deadline — which has been approved by two weeks.
Due to this, the SAA has until 28 February to publish the plan, Matuson said, adding that there was a reasonable chance that the heavily-indebted state-owned airline could be saved from total collapse.
Matuson and his team have argued that rescuing SAA would be a better outcome for all stakeholders than liquidation.
In the event of a liquidation of the SAA, all proceeds would go to certain creditors at the expense of others, and some 10,000 employees stand to lose their jobs.
The government earlier this month placed the SAA into business rescue plan – a form of bankruptcy protection where a specialist advisor takes control of a company to restructure it – after a weeklong strike exacerbated its financial problems and left it at risk of going bust.
The national carrier is one of several state-owned entities that are deeply in the red after nearly a decade of mismanagement and corruption under former President Jacob Zuma, the most troubling of which is power utility Eskom, the country’s mother of all state firms.
SAA’s case is seen as a test for President Cyril Ramaphosa’s resolve to carry out badly-needed economic reforms. Ramaphosa this month promised “drastic action” to turn around cash-strapped and highly indebted state firms.
NM/abj/APA