Plan to save one of South Africa’s oldest companies
Murray & Roberts, South Africa’s most historic construction company, appears to be on the mend with its Business Rescue Practitioners (BRPs) presenting a plan to save the company.
This plan was presented after significant consultation with all affected persons, including creditors, management, employees, and shareholders.
Part of this plan includes the potential sale of Murray & Roberts’ significant mining assets in South Africa.
Founded in 1902, Murray & Roberts is one of South Africa’s oldest companies and has played a pivotal role in building the country’s mining infrastructure over the past century.
Established as a house-building company in the old Cape Colony by the Murrary and Stewart families, the company grew to become one of the first listed on the JSE in 1951.
Over time, Murray & Roberts became much more industrial in nature and focused heavily on specialised engineering for heavy industry and mining.
In effect, its fortunes became very closely tied to those of South Africa’s mining sector and heavy industry, which have performed poorly over the past few decades.
Over the decade from 2000 to 2010, Murray & Roberts experienced significant growth, with its project order book increasing exponentially to R42 billion and revenues quadrupling to R32 billion.
This period in the company’s history was strongly characterised by the lead-up to the 2010 FIFA World Cup and the infrastructure investment programme launched by the government to prepare South Africa for the event.
It was also a time of global expansion as demand for mining, energy and transport infrastructure increased.
However, this momentum would not be sustained forever, as in the decade following the 2010 World Cup, the South African economy slowed, and infrastructure spending declined.
This put immense pressure on construction companies that were heavily reliant on government tenders for their revenue, with many looking offshore for growth opportunities.
Declining investment in new mines in South Africa compounded the company’s problems, with its local order book plunging in value.
These issues all came to a head in November last year when Murray & Roberts announced it would voluntarily suspend trading in its shares and announced its M&R Limited division would be placed in business rescue.
Its indirect subsidiaries, Murray & Roberts Cementation, Murray & Roberts UK, Cementation APAC, Cementation Canada and Terra Nova Technologies, continue to be a going concern.
In late January 2025, Murray & Roberts secured R250 million in financing for its South African operations, which were placed in business rescue in November last year.
This was despite the company revealing a large order book worth R17.2 billion for the year ended June 2024 and a net cash position of R500 million.
However, its South African unit was under severe financial pressure, and its poor performance was beginning to impact its other business units.

The plan to save Murray & Roberts
On 1 April 2025, Murray & Robert’s BRPs released their plan to rescue the construction giant after several months of consultations with relevant stakeholders.
The BRPs explained that the company’s South African unit was in dire financial straits and suffering from severe liquidity constraints.
It was also coming under pressure from its unsustainable debt burden, large contingent liabilities, and a portfolio of unsustainable projects.
“This, coupled with the company’s inability to raise future construction guarantees, without which future work could not be secure, meant that it was reasonably unlikely for the company to continue in existence on a solvent basis,” the BRPs said.
The good news is that the BRPs believe the company can be saved and that they can achieve a better return for creditors and all affected parties than if the company was liquidated.
For the BRPs, the key features of the business rescue plan, if it is adopted by creditors, are –
- The acquisition by differential investors of the company’s mining interests in both the Americas and Africa, as well as all claims held by the company against Murray & Roberts UK and The Cementations Company Africa
- The parallel and timely cessation and closing out of the operations of the company
This means that the BRPs plan to effectively sell off the company’s mining interests, which are its most valuable assets, to a group of investors led by Differential Capital.
The company’s mining interests are worth R1.3 billion and will be sold to the Differential investors, with payment structured in two parts.
Upon the transaction’s closing, an initial payment of R950 million is expected. These funds are meant to repay the remaining secured debt and could potentially provide an initial distribution to unsecured creditors.
The remaining R350 million of the purchase consideration is structured as a deferred payment due on the first anniversary of the adoption of the business rescue plan (31 March 2026) or six months after the closing date of the differential transaction.
One of the biggest hurdles for this planned transaction, which was unveiled on 31 March, is getting approval from the company’s main lenders, which include Absa, Standard Bank, and RMB.
A consolidated retirement fund represented by Differential Capital is also one of the major lenders involved.
If the transaction goes through, the lender group is estimated to recover between 96 and 100 cents on the rand.
By contrast, unsecured creditors are likely to take a much larger hit, with estimated distributions between 0-10 cents on the rand — still higher than the probable liquidation scenario.
Shareholders of Murray & Roberts may be offered a chance to co-invest in the transaction.
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