Comair needs R1.2bn; Phumelela rescue plan; Implats earnings jump 400%; US debt to exceed economy

By Jackie Cameron

• Comair Ltd will require up to R1.2bn of funding and will have to cut a fifth of its workforce to restart operations, administrators in charge of restructuring the private airline told Reuters. The airline, which has been under a form of bankruptcy protection since May, will be able to start operations in December if a business rescue plan presented late Wednesday is approved, they said. Before ceasing operations, Comair operated the local British Airways franchise and budget airline Kulula.com. The plan will also require the company to be delisted from the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, where its shares had been trading for over two decades, said Reuters.
• The business rescue plan for Phumelela has been approved and its implementation will herald a new dawn for horseracing in South Africa, the company said. In terms of the plan Phumelela’s horseracing, tote betting, media and international operations will be formed into a new entity under the leadership of new and existing management. Betting World, Phumelela’s fixed-odds division, is set to be sold along with the company’s shareholdings in Interbet, Supabets and SW Security.
• Impala Platinum’s annual earnings jumped by nearly 400% after higher metal prices and a weaker rand offset the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. This is after higher metal prices and a weaker rand offset the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the company said on Thursday. Reuters reports that mining in South Africa has been hit hard by Covid-19 as lockdowns led to mine closures and miners contracted the disease, but a weak local currency that reduces local costs limited the impact of reduced output. High prices for palladium and rhodium, which Implats extracts together with platinum, also boosted profits as the miner said the dollar basket price of the main minerals it mines rose by 46% year-on-year.
• US debt has reached its highest level compared to the size of the economy since World War II and is projected to exceed it next year, says BizNews partner Wall Street Journal. This is partly the result of a giant fiscal response to the coronavirus pandemic, with federal debt held by the public projected to reach or exceed 100% of US gross domestic product. That, says the Wall Street Journal, would put the US in the company of a handful of nations with debt loads that exceed their economies, including Japan, Italy and Greece. Read the full story on BizNews Premium.