Tongaat exits JSE after 74 years with no payout expected
JOHANNESBURG — Tongaat Hulett will leave the Johannesburg Stock Exchange on 3 November after 74 years, with shareholders warned that they should expect no future distributions from their investment. The delisting ends its stock market presence, but the company says business rescue proceedings will continue as efforts to preserve its businesses remain under way.
The JSE announced its decision on Monday after more than four years of suspended trading and continuing failures to meet listing obligations. Tongaat’s shares were suspended on 20 July 2022 because it had not published its annual financial results for the year ended March 2022. The company entered voluntary business rescue that October.
In explaining the removal, the exchange said Tongaat acknowledged that it could not produce auditable financial information suitable for publication. It also accepted that the available restructuring or liquidation outcomes would leave the listed company without an operating business and without a realistic prospect of restoring compliance. The JSE said retaining the listing could create an expectation of shareholder value or eventual reinstatement that was unlikely to materialise.
Tongaat did not appeal the decision. Shareholders will retain holdings in an unlisted company, but that continued ownership should not be confused with an expectation of recovery. In its announcement, Tongaat advised investors that no value was expected to accrue to them through the available business rescue outcomes and that they should not anticipate future distributions.
The administrative timetable provides for brokers’ positions to be reopened in unlisted form on 2 November, followed by termination of the listing the next morning. Statements reflecting the unlisted holdings are due by 12 November. Although 27 October is identified as the last day for off-market trading, the existing suspension means shares cannot be traded on the JSE platform.
For employees, cane growers and creditors, the central issue remains the future of the operating businesses. Tongaat says delisting does not affect its business rescue proceedings and that practitioners will continue working towards a restructuring solution that preserves businesses as going concerns. Separate rescue processes involving Tongaat Hulett Developments, Tongaat Hulett Sugar South Africa and Voermol Feeds also continue.
The wider economic stakes have already drawn government intervention. In February, the trade ministry said it would oppose Tongaat’s liquidation because of the potential consequences for jobs, farmers and the sugar industry. That intervention followed difficulties in the rescue process, which began after major accounting irregularities and financial distress.
Tongaat’s departure from the exchange, where its listing dates to 1952, therefore closes one chapter without resolving the industrial consequences of its collapse. Shareholders have received a stark assessment of their prospects; the remaining test is whether restructuring can protect the businesses and livelihoods that depend on them.
Anyone with additional information can contact the press desk at press@townpress.co.za or drop a tip on our annonymous platform https://tips.townpress.co.za/