This is according to Daniel Terblanche of Mazars Recovery and Restructuring. Terblanche and two of his colleagues, Byron Chevalier and Neil Miller, are the practitioners dealing with the business rescue process in terms of the Chapter 6 of the new Companies Act.

Terblanche says business recovery can be viewed as an alternative to liquidation, where an attempt is made to create a better result for creditors than would be reached under liquidation circumstances. The purpose of the BR process is to save the business and to continue with the business operations going forward.

The independent creditors in this case include scores of dairy farmers in the Eastern Free State area, who continue to struggle to make ends meet after not receiving payment for milk delivered to Montic since about mid-July. Chairperson of the Milk Producers Organisation in the Free State, Gideon Lamprecht, recently told OFM News that the plus minus 35 farmers the organisation is working with are owed about R10-million.

Terblanche says the BR process stipulates that the first creditors meeting must take place within ten business days of having been appointed as the business rescue practitioner. He says numerous investigations still need to be finalized, but at this stage he believes there is a very definite possibility that the business can be saved.

Terblanche is also urging creditors to cooperate with the practitioners, saying trading is also still in place. 

He says any trade, including purchases of milk, is now being handled on a cash upfront basis. 

Sabrina Dean/OFM News