{"id":432628,"date":"2026-02-18T17:15:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T17:15:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/432628\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T17:15:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T17:15:10","slug":"court-to-hear-tongaat-hulett-provisional-liquidation-bid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/432628\/","title":{"rendered":"Court to hear Tongaat Hulett provisional liquidation bid"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>DURBAN &#8211; All eyes are on the KwaZulu-Natal High Court as it prepares to hear the provisional liquidation application by Tongaat Hulett.<\/p>\n<p>The sugar producer filed for provisional liquidation after efforts to rescue the company were exhausted.<\/p>\n<p>The more than 130-year-old company was rocked by an accounting fraud scandal in 2019.<\/p>\n<p>READ: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.enca.com\/business\/tongaat-hulett-secures-equity-partner\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tongaat Hulett secures equity partner<\/a><\/p>\n<p>A PwC audit found that key executives <a href=\"https:\/\/newsday.co.za\/south-africa\/17770\/the-134-year-old-company-collapsing-in-front-of-everyones-eyes\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">had manipulated the company&#8217;s accounts<\/a> to inflate profits over several years.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The inflated figures were allegedly used to justify executive bonuses and share options.<\/p>\n<p>As a result, the company was forced to restate its financial results, leading to a R12-billion write-down in value and exposing a debt stockpile of R6.6-billion.<\/p>\n<p>Tongaat Hulett entered voluntary business rescue in 2022. Business rescue practitioners were appointed, and by 2024 an official rescue plan had been adopted.<\/p>\n<p>READ: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.enca.com\/business\/former-eskom-exec-appointed-interim-tongaat-hulett-ceo\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Former Eskom exec appointed interim Tongaat Hulett CEO<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The latest controversy involves more than R1-billion reportedly paid in professional fees linked to findings that have yet to be publicly released.<\/p>\n<p>Despite attempts to stabilise operations, the company has been unable to turn things around, placing thousands of jobs and livelihoods at risk.<\/p>\n<p>Thousands of small-scale farmers in the region could also be affected.<\/p>\n<p>The South African Farmers Development Association (SAFDA), which represents about 25,000 small-scale farmers, says roughly 60 percent of its members operate within the company\u2019s catchment area and would be directly impacted.<\/p>\n<p>READ: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.enca.com\/business-videos\/tongaat-hulett-gumede-aligned-consortium-takes-over\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tongaat Hulett | Gumede aligned consortium takes over<\/a><\/p>\n<p>It says it is doing everything possible to prevent further fallout.<\/p>\n<p>SA Canegrowers, another key industry stakeholder, is also seeking solutions for its members.<\/p>\n<p>CEO Thomas Funke has expressed concern that insufficient measures have been taken to protect innocent workers from job losses.<\/p>\n<p>Negotiations are continuing behind closed doors in an attempt to avert what some have likened to a corporate governance crisis similar to the Steinhoff saga.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DURBAN &#8211; All eyes are on the KwaZulu-Natal High Court as it prepares to hear the provisional liquidation&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":432629,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,1294,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-432628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/432629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}