{"id":291162,"date":"2018-12-16T07:24:11","date_gmt":"2018-12-16T05:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=291162"},"modified":"2018-12-16T15:50:35","modified_gmt":"2018-12-16T13:50:35","slug":"edcon-on-brink-of-collapse-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/291162\/edcon-on-brink-of-collapse-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Edcon on brink of collapse: report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of South Africa&#8217;s largest retail groups, Edcon, is on the bring of collapse.<\/p>\n<p>According to a report by the <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/sunday-times\/news\/2018-12-16-crashing-edcon-seeks-relief-from-mall-rents\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sunday Times<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0the closure of Edcon would put 140,000 jobs at risk and deal a massive psychological blow to the South African economy.<\/p>\n<p>In a letter seen by the paper, Edcon is said to have asked its landlords for a two-year 41% &#8216;rent holiday&#8217; in exchange for a 5% share in the business.<\/p>\n<p>The letter states that unless this offer is accepted, Edcon is likely to enter liquidation risking 40,000 direct and 100,000 indirect jobs.<\/p>\n<p>This would make it &#8216;by far the biggest single job loss ever&#8217; in South Africa, said\u00a0economist Mike Schussler.<\/p>\n<p>The Sunday Times reports that the group us also seeking R2 billion in emergency funding from its owners and the state-owned Public Investment Corporation (PIC).<\/p>\n<p>Trading analyst Lester Davids said that landlords would likely find it difficult to fill the space currently occupied by Edcon stores around the country.<\/p>\n<p>But Edcon going under would be even worse, he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The closure of Edcon would have a ripple effect as a large number of employees would be out of work, meaning these employees\u2019 bonds, cars and store card repayments may not be paid.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Edcon manages brands like Edgars, CNA and Jet.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/290738\/6-new-jobs-types-that-sa-companies-are-trying-to-fill\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">6 new jobs types that SA companies are trying to fill<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This would make it\u00a0 &#8216;by far the biggest single job loss ever&#8217; in South Africa, said\u00a0economist Mike Schussler.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":278795,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-291162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291162"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":291186,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291162\/revisions\/291186"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}