RGS Group Holdings, one of two short-listed bidders that aim to bring Tongaat Hulett out of business rescue, had lodged an urgent High Court application to force Tongaat’s business rescue practitioners (BRPs) to hold a creditors’ meeting today, and to ensure that RGS’s bid be put first on the agenda.
RGS’s application had sought to be consolidated for a joint hearing with the applications filed by RCL Foods Sugar & Milling and the South African Sugar Association, who were attempting to stall Tongaat’s creditors’ meeting until certain industry levies and payments were made.
The RGS application sought that the BRPs be ordered to convene the creditors’ meeting today (December 14), that the BRPs be prohibited from conducting a “Pre-Meeting Proxy Vote” to determine the sequence in which the two proposed business rescue plans would be tabled at the meeting; and that the BRPs be ordered to first table the RGS business rescue plan for consideration, and call for a vote on the plan.
Tongaat and the BRPs had opposed the application, a statement said yesterday. Tongaat Hulett, southern Africa’s biggest sugar producer and property development group, went into business rescue in October last year after Covid-19, civil unrest and floods in KwaZulu-Natal stalled an already tenuous financial turnaround.
BUSINESS REPORT