A coal mining house, majority owned by black women, is on the ropes, with its creditors demanding that it be liquidated.
Beryl Coal, which is run by former Standard Bank and SAB executive Reabetswe Kgoroeadira, is at loggerheads with Inceku Mining, which has asked the court to liquidate it over a debt of R130-million.
The company is a subsidiary of Beryl Group, which is a Pan-African diversified investment company. It focuses on strategic proprietary investments, where the parent company holds equity interests in a balanced portfolio of medium and large capitalised companies spanning across three core sectors: logistics and rail, coal and financial services.
In a parallel legal process, Beryl Coal’s shareholder Beryl Partners has asked the court to place the company under business rescue.
Inceku said Beryl Partners’ application must be dismissed as its business rescue bid came after the liquidation proceedings had already started.
Inceku also raised the issue of the inadequacy of the email addresses used to inform creditors of the business rescue proceedings.
Judge Willem Wepener this week agreed with Inceku and threw out Beryl Partners’ application to place the coal mining group under business rescue.
“The application by Beryl Partners to place Beryl Coal in business rescue is struck from the roll. Beryl Partners is ordered to pay the costs of Inceku, such costs to include the costs of two counsel,” Wepener ruled.
“The separate applications for liquidation brought against Beryl Coal by Inceku and SG Coal are hereby consolidated, and the existing provisional order of liquidation replaced with an order placing Beryl Coal in provisional winding up at the instance of Inceku as liquidating creditor.”
The Beryl Group is one of the top suppliers of domestic coal to Eskom.
The company’s provisional liquidators have raised several hair-raising practices at the company. They found that about R283-million worth of assets have disappeared from Beryl Coal within a period of less than six months.
They also found that Beryl Coal is selling coal to Cain Coal at highly discounted prices that make no commercial sense and is causing enormous damage to Beryl Coal.
Thirdly, the provisional liquidators found that Beryl Coal’s right to mine on immovable property was cancelled.
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