{"id":1039,"date":"2020-12-17T20:58:00","date_gmt":"2020-12-17T20:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.com\/south-africa\/?p=1039"},"modified":"2020-12-17T20:58:00","modified_gmt":"2020-12-17T20:58:00","slug":"eskom-bailout-emerging-as-equity-swap-by-pic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/eskom-bailout-emerging-as-equity-swap-by-pic","title":{"rendered":"Eskom bailout emerging as equity swap by PIC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.com\">Africa-Press<\/a> &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.com\/south-africa\">South-Africa<\/a>. <\/strong><\/span>South Africa&#8217;s biggest pot of available cash &#8211; R1.91<br \/>\ntrillion of civil-servant pensions and unemployment funds managed by the Public<br \/>\nInvestment Corporation &#8211; is emerging as the key to rescuing the debt-stricken<br \/>\nnational power monopoly.The money manager has approached its parent agency, the<br \/>\nNational Treasury, with a proposal to ease the R464-billion load of obligations<br \/>\ncrushing Eskom, signalling officials are gearing up for the complex financial<br \/>\nand political operation to convert about R95 billion of Eskom debt held by the<br \/>\nPIC into equity.&#8221;There&#8217;s still a need to undertake a due diligence to<br \/>\nconfirm the viability of this proposal,&#8221; the Treasury said in an 11 December<br \/>\nresponse to questions from Bloomberg, its first statement connecting the PIC to<br \/>\nan Eskom bailout. &#8220;It is important that the PIC be allowed space to follow<br \/>\nits internal governance processes in line with its standard investment<br \/>\nevaluation process to mitigate against any possible breach of governance or<br \/>\nwhat could be perceived as political interference.&#8221;While international investors are cheering efforts to<br \/>\ncontrive a durable fix for Eskom, the idea of tapping the fund is already<br \/>\ndrawing warnings over the potential fallout. The swap, which could put Eskom<br \/>\ninto technical default, would pit the government against its own employees, set<br \/>\na precedent that could see other flailing state-owned companies knocking on the<br \/>\nPIC&#8217;s door, and rattle a private sector concerned that its money could be next.Speculation of a PIC role has intensified in recent weeks<br \/>\nsince President Cyril Ramaphosa told Bloomberg that &#8220;innovative ideas&#8221;<br \/>\nwere being discussed, and Finance Minister Tito Mboweni said the fund was<br \/>\nwilling to contribute to a solution for Eskom. Labour, business and the<br \/>\ngovernment last week agreed to work jointly to reduce the utility&#8217;s debt in the<br \/>\nso-called Eskom Social Compact.&#8221;The sustainability of Eskom&#8217;s debt and the risks it<br \/>\nposes to state finances are now arousing political interests who are increasingly<br \/>\ninterested in grasping a solution,&#8221; said Peter Attard Montalto, head of<br \/>\ncapital markets research at Intellidex. &#8220;Eskom&#8217;s debt needs to be solved.&#8221;The decision to begin installing new steam generators at the<br \/>\nKoeberg plant near Cape Town underscores state-owned Eskom&#8217;s confidence that it<br \/>\nwill win approval to prolong production of low-emissions nuclear power into the<br \/>\nmiddle of the century.The scope of the task has increased since Goldman Sachs<br \/>\nGroup described the utility in 2017 as the biggest threat to South Africa&#8217;s<br \/>\neconomy, which is just exiting its longest recession in 28 years. Eskom&#8217;s<br \/>\ninability to provide reliable power since 2008, when outages began, has crimped<br \/>\noutput and disrupted everything from aluminium smelters to household kitchens.The deterioration was worsened by years of looting under<br \/>\nRamaphosa&#8217;s predecessor, Jacob Zuma, leading to the 2019 bailout that totalled R128<br \/>\nbillion over three years. But that&#8217;s merely keeping the wolf from the door and<br \/>\nthe search for a long-term solution is under way for the too-big-to-fail<br \/>\noperation.READ | PIC may convert Eskom debt to equity&#8217;Materially cheap&#8217;Plans to rescue Eskom, which has said it can&#8217;t afford to<br \/>\nservice more than R200 billion of debt, have also included dipping into the surpluses of state-run unemployment<br \/>\nand compensation funds and converting some of its mostly government-guaranteed<br \/>\ndebt into sovereign bonds.Credit analysts have been talking up Eskom as a 2021 top pick,<br \/>\nciting the government&#8217;s efforts, says Lutz Roehmeyer, the chief investment<br \/>\nofficer at Capitulum Asset Management GmbH in Berlin, who holds Eskom dollar<br \/>\nbonds and isn&#8217;t adding any more. &#8220;Investors are very bullish on the name<br \/>\nand expect the sovereign to solve the problem,&#8221; he said.JPMorgan Chase &amp; Co. this week called Eskom bonds &#8220;materially<br \/>\ncheap&#8221; compared with sovereign debt.&#8221;As long as debt declines and becomes more sustainable,<br \/>\nthat&#8217;s really the number one priority,&#8221; said Guido Chamorro, co-head of<br \/>\nemerging-market hard-currency debt at Pictet Asset Management in London, which<br \/>\nmanages $10 billion in developing-nation assets, including Eskom 2028 notes. &#8220;There<br \/>\nare 101 different ways to do it. I mean, the government as the sole shareholder<br \/>\ncould even assume the debt. Or use its lower funding costs to borrow and then<br \/>\ntransfer the funds to Eskom.&#8221;The PIC is recovering from a government inquiry last year<br \/>\ninto how political meddling influenced decision-making. The probe led to the<br \/>\ndeparture of several senior executives following disclosures that included<br \/>\nbailing out one of the country&#8217;s biggest retailers ahead of a national election<br \/>\nagainst the advice of its investment professionals.While the Congress of South African Trade Unions, a key ally<br \/>\nof the ruling African National Congress, has backed using PIC funds to help<br \/>\nEskom, other labour groups, including the 235,000-member Public Servants<br \/>\nAssociation, and business leaders have opposed it.Eskom&#8217;s own employee pension fund has signalled resistance to<br \/>\nthe idea. It doesn&#8217;t want to change the &#8220;risk-return characteristics&#8221;<br \/>\nof its R2-billion investment in the company&#8217;s debt or add to the holding, said<br \/>\nChief Investment Officer Ndabezinhle Mkhize.PitfallsAll of the options being considered have their pitfalls. A<br \/>\ndebt-to-equity swap may have to be offered to all creditors and could be<br \/>\nclassified by ratings firms as a default. Converting Eskom debt into sovereign<br \/>\nbonds could flood the market and unnerve holders of South Africa&#8217;s R2.62<br \/>\ntrillion of junk-rated government bonds.&#8221;We could lower the rating by one or more notches if<br \/>\nthe utility undertakes a debt restructuring, which, in our view, could be<br \/>\ntantamount to a default,&#8221; Standard &amp; Poors&#8217; said in a 25 November<br \/>\nstatement.Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter has been credited with improving<br \/>\noperations since taking over January but has said the debt question is in the<br \/>\nhands of the government. He has spoken of using green finance to help reduce<br \/>\ncoal use and cut its debt. He didn&#8217;t give specifics.Ultimately, unpalatable as it might be, the government may<br \/>\nfind it just has to meet the utility&#8217;s obligations by paying off its debt at it<br \/>\nfalls due.&#8221;Everybody knows Eskom needs to do something about its<br \/>\ndebt, no one knows what that looks like,&#8221; said Olga Constantatos, head of<br \/>\ncredit at Futuregrowth Asset Management, which has R194 billion under<br \/>\nmanagement, including Eskom debt. &#8220;It&#8217;s in a utility death spiral as well<br \/>\nas a debt spiral.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; South-Africa. South Africa&#8217;s biggest pot of available cash &#8211; R1.91 trillion of civil-servant pensions and unemployment funds managed by the Public Investment Corporation &#8211; is emerging as the key to rescuing the debt-stricken national power monopoly.The money manager has approached its parent agency, the National Treasury, with a proposal to ease the R464-billion [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":1038,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,8],"tags":[274,304,129,302,127,303,305,275],"class_list":["post-1039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-economy","category-homepage-english","tag-africa-press","tag-debt","tag-electricity","tag-energy-crisis","tag-eskom","tag-load-shedding","tag-pic","tag-south-africa-2"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Eskom bailout emerging as equity swap by PIC - South Africa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/eskom-bailout-emerging-as-equity-swap-by-pic\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Eskom bailout emerging as equity swap by PIC\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Africa-Press &#8211; South-Africa. South Africa&#8217;s biggest pot of available cash &#8211; R1.91 trillion of civil-servant pensions and unemployment funds managed by the Public Investment Corporation &#8211; is emerging as the key to rescuing the debt-stricken national power monopoly.The money manager has approached its parent agency, the National Treasury, with a proposal to ease the R464-billion [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/eskom-bailout-emerging-as-equity-swap-by-pic\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"South Africa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-12-17T20:58:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/sites\/31\/2020\/12\/img-5fdbb68d9eeff.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"684\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/eskom-bailout-emerging-as-equity-swap-by-pic#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/eskom-bailout-emerging-as-equity-swap-by-pic\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Eskom bailout emerging as equity swap by PIC\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-12-17T20:58:00+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/eskom-bailout-emerging-as-equity-swap-by-pic\"},\"wordCount\":1043,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/eskom-bailout-emerging-as-equity-swap-by-pic#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/sites\/31\/2020\/12\/img-5fdbb68d9eeff.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"debt\",\"electricity\",\"energy crisis\",\"Eskom\",\"load shedding\",\"pic\",\"South-Africa\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"economy\",\"homepage-english\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/eskom-bailout-emerging-as-equity-swap-by-pic#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/eskom-bailout-emerging-as-equity-swap-by-pic\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/eskom-bailout-emerging-as-equity-swap-by-pic\",\"name\":\"Eskom bailout emerging as equity swap by PIC - 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