South Africa’s National Treasury Department has officially declared that South African Airways (SAA) is no longer technically insolvent. The chief director of asset and liability management at the Treasury, Ravesh Rajlal gave an online presentation to the Standing Committee on Appropriations stating that SAA had a net equity value of $55.4 million as of December 31, 2022.
The carrier also reported a net loss for the first three quarters of FY22-23 as $2.7 million over the budgeted loss of $35.3 million.
SAA exited business rescue almost two years ago on April 30, 2021 and resumed commercial flights on September 23, 2021. The semi-privatisation deal of the airline between the South African government and Takatso Consortium (preferred strategic equity partner or SEP) for a 51% stake in the airline is still under consideration.
“In order for progress to be made on the SEP, there are literally two outstanding issues, that we are aware of, that deal with some of the outstanding liabilities to the concurrent creditors and the unflown ticket liabilities. Once that has been addressed, we obviously will have some progress or some traction in terms of what’s happening on the SAA front,” Rajlal said while answering the questions.
While Mango Airlines is under provisional liquidation with its administrator taking legal steps to force public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan to decide on a proposed sale to an unnamed interested investor, SAA’s maintenance subsidiary, SAA Technical (SAAT), recorded profits in the first two quarters of FY22-23 but incurred a loss in the final quarter, resulting in an overall loss of $133,064.
The Treasury declared SAAT as solvent with a positive equity value of $94.2 million as of December 31, 2022.