BusinessLive reports that Basil Read, which is fighting for survival after being forced into business rescue a year ago, says it has retrenched all staff not currently working on projects and will move out of its head office in Johannesburg to cut costs.  

Basil Read and some other former stalwarts of the construction industry, including Group Five, have succumbed to a shortage of major projects amid a downturn in the SA economy and a deterioration of public finances.  Basil Read went into business rescue – a process aimed at rehabilitating financially distressed companies – in June 2018 after a consortium of lenders declined to provide it with bridging funding unless it went that route.  The company has since terminated some contracts and cut costs by retrenching staff and reducing the size of its board.  Barring those employees who were working on Basil Read’s last remaining projects – including at the Medupi power station – and the remaining staff at head office, “all other employees have been retrenched and will receive their full retrenchment packages”, the contractor said on Friday.  The group indicated that most of the 20 construction contracts it was working on in June 2018 have been completed or terminated.  It was still working on three projects, while five others “are in the process of being descoped or ceded to other contractors”.  Basil Read has also been selling surplus plants and equipment at auctions, and is looking to offload its mining and development businesses.

• Read the full original of Nick Hedley’s report on the above story at BusinessLive

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