The business rescue practitioner of Mango, Sipho Sono, is hopeful that Minister of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan will approve the sale of the low-cost airline "imminently".
In October Gordhan said he will not consider an application for approval of the Mango sale in terms of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) until Sono and Mango's shareholder, South African Airways (SAA), resolved concerns previously raised by SAA about the sale. The exact nature of the concerns SAA raised was not revealed, but Sono has previously described them as "of a mere housekeeping nature".
Sono says in his latest business rescue report to creditors that he and SAA have resolved issues raised by the latter regarding the sale. This resulted in an updated application for approval of the sale in terms of the PFMA submitted to Gordhan at the end of November.
"With those issues now out of the way, I anticipate that the minister will consider the application imminently, and if satisfied, approve the disposal," Sono tells creditors.
"The necessary sale of shares and share subscription agreements have been drafted and will be concluded in due course, subject, among other things, to the approval of the application by the minister."
If the proposed sale fails, Sono will implement a wind-down process already incorporated in Mango's adopted business rescue plan.
Mango was placed in voluntary business rescue in July 2021 and has not flown since. Sono wanted Mango to restart operations on 2 December 2021. However, SAA's shareholder, the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE), made it clear this could only be done if an investor bought Mango.After a due diligence process, a consortium, whose identity has not yet been revealed, was selected by Sono as the preferred bidder to buy Mango.
If the PFMA application is approved, Competition Commission and other regulatory approvals would then still be needed.
The DPE indicated on Wednesday that it did not have any comment at this time.