Nampak: When oil blocks the cash flow
Nampak is overcoming the difficulty it faced after it could not repatriate funds from two profitable African countries
When André de Ruyter departed from Sasol in 2013 to become Nampak CEO he left a company heavily dependent on the oil price. But not much is different for him now. The oil price became very much a part of his life again in 2015, when it went into free fall. This left Nampak’s two biggest African markets by far, Angola and Nigeria, chronically short of US dollars, which are crucial to their ability to fund imports and service foreign liabilities. The two African countries imposed draconian dollar rationing, leaving Nampak unable to repatriate dividends and loan repayments to SA. To keep the wheels turning at its Angolan and Nigerian beverage can plants, Nampak was also forced to fund a big chunk of payments to foreign suppliers through its Isle of Man debt facility.
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