The national airline, South African Airways (SAA) is currently a trending topic after Minister of Public Enterprise, Pravin Gordon, announced the collapse of a 51% sale stake of the airline’s shares to Takatso Consortium.
Takatso (Aviation) is an investment company established for the purpose of acquiring a majority stake of the national carrier shares, in a Strategic Equity Partnership with the government.
Former journalist Thulasizwe Simelane, currently employed by Takatso Consortium as a key point of contact for media to ensure that the citizens are informed of the national airline processes for financial sustainability, visited Newzroom Afrika for answers.
Responding to the question about the lack of funds that were tabled by the Ministry of Public Enterprise as the reason for the agreement collapse, Thulasizwe responded:
“That’s not my recollection at all, that he attached the inability to come up with funds as being the reason for the negotiations that had been re-opened being terminated, and the transaction being terminated by mutual agreement.”
“He cited a number of factors that were at play. The fact of fact of the matter is that this mutually agreed termination was actually triggered by Takatso itself. We did that Friday last week, writing to the DPE to say that, in light of the uncertainty, and quite frankly the risk that has been introduced by some of the changes that have happened to the transaction structure, during the negotiations that we had agreed to re-open in good faith, despite having a binding and valid share purchase agreement since February 2022.”
Thulasizwe added:
“The changes to the structure are so complex that we fore-saw quite a number of complexities emerging, even from there that would have further elongated what has already been a long process and we decided it was no longer in the interest of our stakeholders to continue with that.”
He stresses that funding was not an issue of divergence as they had gone past that stage with the airline and both parties had a clear path of how the funds would flow.
Takatso Consortium’s Thulasizwe Simelane says Takatso’s ‘inability’ to come up with the funds in the SAA deal was no longer an issue of dispute. Announcing that the deal was cancelled yesterday, Minister Pravin Gordhan said Takatso didn’t have money.https://t.co/WV93J4FQYF pic.twitter.com/vPlU2mmFPb
— Newzroom Afrika (@Newzroom405) March 14, 2024
Also see: Double standards? Internet reacts to BBM’s Yolanda saying she wants to ‘molest’
