Murray & Roberts has pulled off the deal that keeps it standing. The engineering group, one of South Africa's best-known names in construction and mining, has completed the R1.27 billion sale of its core mining-services businesses to a consortium led by local investor Differential Capital. It clears the single biggest hurdle in the group's business rescue, the formal turnaround it entered in November 2024 after debt and cash-flow pressure became too much to carry.
What changed hands
The sale moves the heart of the old group into a standalone company backed by fresh capital: the Cementation underground-mining operations in Africa and the Americas, plus a technology business called Terra Nova. Those businesses come with live contracts already running, including a five-year underground development job at Tharisa Minerals and work at Mopani Copper Mines in Zambia. To fund the deal, arranger Redinc Capital raised about R1.2 billion through four tranches of JSE-listed preference shares.
Crucially for workers, the deal secures about 2,600 jobs and lets the rescue practitioners repay every secured lender and post-commencement financier. Of the R1.27 billion price, R1 billion was paid on closing, with the balance due in a year. There is a catch for those further back in the queue: unsecured creditors are unlikely to see any payout until that deferred slice lands.
New owners, new leadership
Japie du Plessis steps in as chief executive of the new group, with Sibulele Songca as chief financial officer. "This is much more than a change in ownership; it is the start of a new chapter for us," Du Plessis said. The buyer framed it the same way: Differential's Mark Salmon said the appeal was "to preserve a world-class mining services platform with deep technical expertise and a highly skilled workforce."
This was effectively the last big piece to sell. The group's only other significant asset, OptiPower, went to Kulani Energy back in January, and the rescue team says there are no more material assets left to offload. For a company that lost its listed parent to a high-court winding-up order, walking away with the business and its 2,600 people intact is about as good as a business rescue gets, and a rare bit of good news in South African heavy industry.
