October 12 2026 16:00
KZN, SOUTH AFRICA
The JSE will remove Tongaat Hulett from its Main Board on 3 November 2026, ending a 74-year listing for one of South Africa’s best-known companies and confirming that shareholders are unlikely to get anything back.
The delisting, announced on 12 October, comes as the criminal case against seven people accused of an alleged R3.5bn fraud linked to the sugar and property group’s accounts has been postponed to March 2027. Among the accused is Mike Deighton, the former managing director of the group’s property arm, Tongaat Hulett Developments.
The end of a JSE stalwart
Tongaat Hulett has been listed on the JSE since 1952. Its shares were suspended in July 2022 after it failed to publish annual results, and the company entered voluntary business rescue in October that year.
The JSE said it was removing the company because it had no realistic prospect of restoring compliance with the listing requirements. Tongaat has no auditable financial statements, and its shares have not traded for about four years, leaving no basis to value them.
Tongaat itself told the exchange that every likely outcome of the rescue process which could be a restructuring, an asset sale or liquidation, would leave it without its operating businesses and unable to meet the obligations of a listed company. None of those outcomes was expected to produce any value for shareholders. The directors and business rescue practitioners said they would not challenge the decision.
After 3 November, shareholders will still own their shares, but as unlisted certificated holdings administered by Computershare.
A long road through business rescue
The rescue process has been fraught. In August 2024, shareholders rejected a debt-to-equity conversion proposed by the Vision consortium, which had bought Tongaat’s lender debt. That forced the business rescue practitioners to pursue a sale of the group’s assets and businesses to Vision instead.
Those sale agreements lapsed in February 2026 when Vision declined to extend them, and the practitioners applied to place the company in provisional liquidation. The application was withdrawn in June after the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), Vision and the rescue practitioners reached a binding agreement to keep the business trading. New sale agreements were set for the South African operations and the group’s interests in Zimbabwe, Botswana and Mozambique.
Separate business rescue proceedings for Tongaat Hulett Developments, Tongaat Hulett Sugar South Africa and Voermol Feeds are continuing. For the sugar industry, the stakes are high. Tongaat operates three mills, and more than 17,500 cane growers rely on it.
The accounting scandal
Tongaat’s collapse can be traced back to 2019, when the group disclosed serious accounting irregularities. Its share price plunged and it was left with debts of more than R8bn.
Much of the alleged wrongdoing centred on the property business. Tongaat Hulett Developments managed the group’s large land holdings north of Durban, including the fast-growing Ballito and Umhlanga corridors, selling land to developers for residential, commercial and industrial projects.
Prosecutors allege that land sale agreements were backdated between 2015 and 2018. This, the state says, allowed the company to recognise revenue and profits earlier than it should have, so that its financial statements overstated its performance and misled shareholders. The state also alleges that the accused benefited through bonuses linked to the inflated profits.
The Financial Sector Conduct Authority imposed an administrative penalty of R118.34m on Tongaat Hulett for contraventions of the Financial Markets Act. Tongaat has also brought civil claims against former directors, including former CEO Peter Staude.
The accused
Seven people were charged and first appeared in the Durban Specialised Commercial Crimes Court in February 2022, where they were granted bail of R30,000 each. They are:
- Peter Staude, former CEO
- Murray Munro, former CFO
- Mike Deighton, former managing director of Tongaat Hulett Developments
- Rory Wilkinson, former planning director of Tongaat Hulett Developments
- Kamasagrie Singh, a former legal executive
- Samantha Shukla, a former finance executive
- Gavin Kruger, the Deloitte audit partner at the time
They face charges of fraud amounting to about R3.5bn, as well as charges under the Financial Markets Act, the Companies Act and the Prevention of Organised Crime Act. The state has alleged that the executives acted together, and that the former Deloitte partner failed to report irregularities. Deloitte had audited Tongaat for 82 years before being replaced by EY.
The accused have not yet entered pleas or presented their defence, and none has been convicted.
Trial delayed again
More than four years after the first court appearance, the trial has still not started. When the accused appeared in the Durban High Court in September, the state asked for a postponement so it could apply for a fresh racketeering certificate in respect of Kruger. A panel for the National Director of Public Prosecutions was arranged to hear that application from 6 to 9 October 2026.
The case was postponed to 18 March 2027 for a pre-trial conference, and the accused remain on bail.
Why it matters for South African property
For the property industry, the Tongaat case is a stark reminder of how land sales and development revenue can be at the heart of a corporate accounting scandal. Tongaat Hulett Developments was one of KwaZulu-Natal’s most influential land developers, and its land bank shaped the growth of the north coast.
The fact that a senior figure from the property sector is among the accused has made the case particularly closely watched within the industry. But until the court rules, the allegations remain just that.
What is already clear is the cost. Tongaat’s shareholders have lost their investment, a JSE listing that lasted more than seven decades is ending, and the future of the sugar business now rests with Vision and the IDC.
alistair@propertyflash.co.za
