Thousands of jobs at tech firm on line

Cape Town — Between 5 000 and 7 000 jobs are on the line due to the Johannesburg-based First Tech Group having been placed under provisional liquidation. Early in July an attempt at business rescue had been made since debts could no longer be paid. This process has failed.“Once liquidators have been appointed, they intend to get in contact with all affected persons,” according to Matuson Associates, a consulting firm specialising in business rescue appointments and restructuring distressed corporate debt.

First Tech Group was established more than   20 years ago and ended up having about 18                                                                                                            divisions and 19 production facilities throughout South Africa.

The group’s commercial and infrastructure products supplied various industries including the railways, civil engineering, mining, agriculture, construction and petro-chemical industries.

The group had bought out Cosira, a company  which was contracted to provide steel for the  Medupi power station. Cosira has also been provisionally liquidated after a business rescue attempt had failed.

Other subsidiaries of First Tech which now have to wind down include First Tech Lighting, Gazelle Plastics and Bari Engineering.

First Tech belonged to Jeff Wiggill, who was killed in June.
His body was found in Protea Glen by police near his Bentley. He had gunshot wounds to the  head.

Wiggill had apparently been hijacked and taken to Soweto. Sources close to the investigation say the murder was more than just a hijacking and could be linked to First Tech’s huge debt, reported  The Star.

“Since the demise of Mr Wiggill, it has become necessary to unravel a number of complex and intricate financial transactions concluded for and on behalf of the group,” according to a statement by Andy Bertulis, the group’s CEO.

Fin24 was approached by an interested party who is concerned about what the consequences would be for employees of First Tech regarding matters like their pension funds.

Matuson did not reply to an enquiry about this,   apart from the official statement mentioned above. — Fin24