JOHANNESBURG — Steinhoff’s management is currently doing everything it can to try and delay the seemingly inevitable. The embattled company has now asked creditors for an extension of a lock-up agreement. Creditors, as well as enraged shareholders with class-action lawsuits, are circling around the company, looking to pounce and get their pounds of flesh. It will be interesting to see if the company survives beyond its crisis anniversary date of December 6, 2018 (this is a date that will mark exactly one year since Markus Jooste dramatically quit, sending Steinhoff’s share price hurtling closer towards the grave.) – Gareth van Zyl
By Renee Bonorchis
(Bloomberg) –Â Steinhoff International Holdings NV said it has asked creditors to agree to an extension of the lock-up agreement, delaying it to Nov. 20 from Oct. 20.
“We have continued to receive significant support from creditors under the lock-up agreement and we remain in positive discussions with them,” Danie van der Merwe, acting head of Steinhoff, said in the statement on Monday. “Negotiations on the implementation documentation are now well advanced and the one-month extension to the long stop date will give us the necessary time to complete that process ahead of any necessary restructuring processes being launched.”
As part of a broader restructuring Steinhoff’s US Mattress Firm unit has become a subsidiary of Steinhoff Europe, the retailer said in the statement. Mattress Firm went into bankruptcy earlier this month.
