Independent Trustees
Training Companies in Stellenbosch

Independent Trustees is one of the leading business recovery and insolvency practitioners in South Africa. The involvement of Managing Director, together with the experience of highly motivated and qualified professional staff, in insolvencies and liquidations over the past twenty three years, Hans Klopper, equip the company with expertise in this exciting and specialised commercial environment. We administer a wide variety of matters over the entire spectrum of the economy.

The estate planning will depend on what the couple wants and what form of marriage they are in. When drafting a Last Will and Testament, spouses married in community of property need to be aware that it is only half of any asset that he or she is able to bequeath. Each estate planner (spouse) retains possession of assets owned prior to the marriage. Section 133 of the Companies Act was in my view drafted to provide for a general moratorium on legal proceedings by creditors or other parties against the company under business rescue. The court held that whole scheme of sections 150 and 153 of the Companies Act is that there is no room for a business rescue practitioner to reserve to himself the right to amend a business rescue plan and that this would circumvent the Companies Act in terms of which claims, which are to be discharged in terms of a rescue plan, derive their binding force. business rescue financial distress recent judgment International Trade and Investments. First, commercial banks will look at financing economics and the possibility of future lending opportunities. Distressed investment funds frequently focus on the opportunity to acquire the debtor’s business at a deep discount. Their funds rather focus on the economic advantages available by investing in distressed companies, including the high short-term fees available via DIP loans. It is therefore distressed investment funds, which more frequently employ loan-to-own post-petition financing strategies. As a result, commercial banks are attracted are to the DIP financing market by the high fees and interest rates and the relative likelihood of repayment typical of DIP loans. It is also necessary to look at how a DIP financier or for that matter PCF lender, being the distressed investment fund, control the process. First, in order to assure that it will have an opportunity to credit-bid its PCF obligations and, if applicable, its acquired pre-commencement debt, the offensive PCF lender will typically include milestones in the credit agreement requiring the BRP to undertake a sale process. Firstly, the agreement will provide for the loan structure and amount. The structure of a DIP loan is frequently determined by the working-capital needs of the debtor and whether it will be structured as a term loan, revolving loan, or some combination of the two, the loan structure itself is likely to have little impact on the outcome of a debtor’s case. Generally, a DIP loan will have a considerably shorter term than a typical pre-petition corporate credit agreement. A lender funding a restructuring therefore typically will seek to limit the period that its borrower remains in bankruptcy and impose milestones to ensure that the debtor continues to progress toward a sale or confirmation and emergence. Credit agreement covenants and events of default are lenders’ primary means to control their relationships with their borrowers. DIP financing credit agreements, therefore, frequently contain financial covenants that measure minimum performance rather than overall financial health, which can provide the lender with an early escape route-without having to wait for an actual payment default-in the event that the borrower’s business falters. The effect of such a higher nominal amount of PCF may be that that the company under BR will have the benefit of increased creditor confidence and as consequence of which suppliers may be more willing to provide products on terms more advantageous to the company than what they would have been prepared to do under regular uncertain business rescue circumstances. Furthermore, customers may continue to utilise the company’s service with the confidence that the company will ultimately emerge from Business Rescue. There is a view that banks are in terms of its cession of book debts entitled to rely on book debts created post the commencement of business rescue proceedings as additional security. It is clear to us that distressed funding or, PCF, remains one of the most topical issues in restructuring businesses and for the business rescue process to work. While a commercial bank may seek to profit through fees and interest earned over the course of a long-term relationship with a borrower, the business model of distressed investment funds is entirely different.