Edcon Holdings Ltd, a debt-laden South African retail giant, reached a non-binding agreement with unidentified investors to recapitalise and avoid selling some of its businesses, the Sunday Times reports, citing chief executive Grant Pattison.<\/p>\n
Basic terms have been agreed and the company is putting in place \u201cdetailed clauses of the final agreement,\u201d Pattison said, according to the Johannesburg-based newspaper.<\/p>\n
The 89-year-old company has about 21,000 employees in a country where more than one in four people don\u2019t have jobs. Edcon, with more than 1,100 stores across southern Africa, has struggled amid weak consumer spending and slower economic growth in South Africa.<\/p>\n
It was taken over by banks and bondholders in 2016 to avoid failing.<\/p>\n
Edcon\u2019s net third-party debt climbed 67% to 7 billion ($445 million) at the end of June, from R4.2 billion a year earlier, as the currency weakened against the euro and interest charges increased after converting some of its debt, it says on its website.<\/p>\n