Tongaat Hulett faces liquidation proceedings next month after business rescue practitioners said they were left with no other option. If the liquidation proceeds, thousands of small cane grower incomes will be jeopardized in northern KwaZulu-Natal.
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The JSE said on Wednesday that it has applied for leave to appeal a Gauteng High Court order to remit an application by former Tongaat Hulett financial director, Murray Munro, back to the JSE - the application seeks to set aside a JSE decision to censure and fine him R6 million.
The JSE said that following an investigation, it had previously imposed a public censure and a fine of R6m for Munro's actions, which had resulted in and contributed to the restatement of Tongaat's previously published financial information. This information did not comply with international financial reporting standards and was materially incorrect, false, and misleading.
Additionally, the JSE had disqualified Munro from holding the office of a director or officer of a listed company for 10 years due to his failure to fulfil his duties and responsibilities as the CFO with the necessary due care and skill.
On January 28, 2025, Munro had applied to the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria for an order that the JSE decision, as well as the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) decision to dismiss a Reconsideration Application, be reviewed and set aside.
On April 20, the Court ordered that the matter be remitted to the JSE, which means the Court ordered the JSE to deal with the matter again.
Munro was also among six former Tongaat Hulett executives, including its former CEO Peter Staude, who have been criminally charged and are on trial for racketeering and contraventions of the Financial Markets Act and Companies Act.
They have been accused of submitting “false, misleading, and deceptive” financial statements that ultimately led to South Africa’s biggest sugar producer entering business rescue in late 2022.
The JSE previously fined Tongaat Hulett R7.5m, and the FSCA fined it R20m, both in 2020, for serious accounting irregularities that misled investors and breached financial reporting laws in the group’s financial statements from 2011 to 2018.
Meanwhile, Tongaat Hulett’s liquidation proceedings in the KwaZulu-Natal High Court have been adjourned for hearing on 17 and 18 June 2026.
This adjournment was supported by the business rescue practitioners, the Industrial Development Corporation, the Vision Consortium (which won the bid to take over the company out of business rescue), and the South African Cane Growers Association.
And in a related legal case this week, the National Prosecuting Authority summoned Mozambique-based RGS Group Holdings to court on Tuesday over an alleged fraudulent Absa bank letter that purported to detail RGS’s R2 billion funding capabilities for its failed bid to acquire Tongaat Hulett.
The matter was postponed in the Randburg Magistrate Court until June 10.
RGS executive chairman Aquil Rajahussein had presented himself to the Hawks on Monday, while the other accused was the RGS group.
RGS had previously launched multiple legal actions against Tongaat Hulett in the KwaZulu-Natal courts and elsewhere, in an attempt to block the rival Vision Investors acquisition, challenge the business rescue plan, and contest the company’s liquidation.
Key actions include failed interdicts against the business rescue plan, with one major 2025 application dismissed with costs.
RGS Group is owned by the Gulamo family. Over the past 25 years, RGS has grown into one of Mozambique's largest conglomerates, with businesses in the retail, distribution, logistics, extraction, transformation, and agriculture sectors.
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