Marriage of convenience
Smouldering value: Wescoal's burning ambition
Keaton’s absorption into Wescoal may be the tonic it needs, writes Charlotte Mathews
Keaton Energy and Wescoal Holdings both went through major upheavals two years ago. Wescoal has emerged stronger; Keaton has lost a little of its mojo. Its absorption into Wescoal may be the tonic its operations need. In the first few months of 2015 there was a boardroom fallout at Wescoal between chairman Robinson Ramaite and founder/CEO Andre Boje over its empowerment strategy, resulting in Boje’s departure. Under Ramaite, and Boje’s replacement Waheed Sulaiman, Wescoal had pushed up its empowerment shareholding above 60% by late last year, achieving more than the 50% plus one share insisted on by major customer Eskom. Around the same time, Keaton discovered employees of its Vaalkrantz colliery had been complicit in stealing about R24.7m of stock over a 12-month period. The internal theft was particularly unfortunate because Keaton had been carrying the loss-making mine for some time to avoid retrenchments. Though Keaton said collusion was hard to detect, the event shook the marke...
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