Takeover deal emerges for BCL
Mbongeni Mguni | Wednesday February 8, 2017 17:35
BCL Ltd wholly owns BCL Mine and BCL Investments, as well as an 85% stake in Tati Nickel Mining Company.
All operations ceased in October 2016 after government successfully applied to the High Court for provisional liquidation citing the impossible costs of continuing operations.
Yesterday, lawyers representing BCL’s provisional liquidator, Nigel Dixon-Warren appeared before Judge Gaolapelwe Ketlogetswe and requested an extension in order to finalise the “deal on the table”.
“The original provisional liquidation order of October 2016 had stated that one should show cause why this order cannot be made final and we have notification from the Minerals Development Company of Botswana, which says there is an offer on the table looking for a takeover of all three companies.
“This offer carries the support of the provisional liquidator. The matter is urgent,” Panayiotis Staice, an attorney for Dixon-Warren said.
Meanwhile, Energy, Mineral Resources and Green Technology minister, Sadique Kebonang is in Dubai, from where he announced, via social media, that he was “saving BCL Mine”. He could not be reached for comment yesterday. Ketlogetswe approved the extension of the provisional order of liquidation to March 15, when the lawyers will be due again in court to discuss an order of final liquidation or winding down.
The latest development comes as a ray of hope to the 5,000-plus workers rendered jobless by the closure of BCL Mine and Tati Nickel in October, a development that raised the spectre of ghost-town status for Selebi Phikwe. According to established procedures, any offer from Dubai, or elsewhere, will need to be tabled to BCL Ltd’s creditors for approval or rejection. In Phikwe last month, Dixon-Warren told journalists that the first such meeting of creditors would only take place in April.
“Even if a buyer can be secured, it would take him a period of about 12 to 18 months to commence the mining operations,” Dixon-Warren said.
While the majority of BCL Ltd’s creditors are expected to welcome the latest developments with open arms, it remains to be seen what the response of Norilsk Nickel, BCL’s single biggest creditor, will be.