South Africa to sell its majority stake in collapsed flag carrier

South Africa will sell a majority stake in its collapsed national flag carrier to local investors in the first privatisation of an ailing state-owned company since President Cyril Ramaphosa took power in 2018. Harith General Partners, an African infrastructure investor and Global Aviation, a local airline operator, will take over 51% of South African Airways, Ramaphosa’s government said on Friday. SAA was once the continent’s biggest carrier but needed tens of billions of rands in bailouts to survive in recent years, adding to the strain on South Africa’s public finances during a long period of stagnation in Africa’s most industrial economy. “The new SAA will not be dependent on the fiscus. It will be agile enough to cope with the current uncertainty, and improvement, in global travel,” said Pravin Gordhan, the minister overseeing state-owned companies. The government will retain the remaining 49% of SAA. It will have a golden share in the airline of a third of voting rights that is also applicable to “certain areas of national interest,” it said. The investors plan to list the new airline “as one way of addressing future funding requirements and to enable all South Africans to take part in its success,” the consortium said. The investors will have a major task in turning round SAA, which has a history of political interference by the ruling African National Congress.<br/>