Sasol is negotiating what it claims will be the SA oil industry’s largest empowerment deal, worth R2,5 billion, to be announced later this year.
Sasol is negotiating what it claims will be the SA oil industry’s largest empowerment deal, worth R2,5 billion, to be announced later this year.
The deal, with an as-yet unnamed black empowerment partner, will flow from Sasol’s commitment, under the current oil industry charter, for empowerment of at least 25 per cent in its liquid fuels marketing and distribution business, Sasol executive director Pat Davies said yesterday.
According to , Davies said Sasol was busy with “a big exercise” to restructure the organisation to accommodate black economic empowerment interests.
He said there would be a significant announcement “towards the end of the year. We are fully committed to going ahead with this”.
Meanwhile, has quoted Sasol’s chief financial officer and executive director, Trevor Munday, as saying that “only a major global collapse in financial markets would prevent Sasol’s April 9 listing on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).
Not even the threat of a US war against Iraq would deter the synthetic oil and chemical producer from its bid to join the most active market in the world, Munday said, adding that the planned upgrade to the full New York Stock Exchange had been well received by both local and foreign investors.
The US bourse was the “most active petrochemical company exchange in the world”, he said, and would provide the type of peer group comparison of Sasol that was vital to fund managers.
Reports say Sasol has complied with all the exchange’s requirements. The listing would be jointly advised by Deutsche Bank and Merrill Lynch.