Trustco braces for humongous loss

Jo-Maré Duddy - The beleaguered Trustco Group Holdings is expecting a “basic loss” of between N$821 million and N$874 million in its audited results for the 11-month period ended 31 August 2021.
That is a plunge of between N$555 million and N$608 million from the basic loss of N$266 million Trustco suffered in its audited results for the 18-month financial period ended 31 September 2020, the group said in a trading statement on the Namibian Stock Exchange (NSX) today.
The Namibian-based group further expects a tumble in revenue by between 36% and 56% - from N$618 million in September 2020 to between N$393 million and N$270 million at the end of August 2021.
Trustco last month said it intends to delist from three stock exchanges and will seek a “business-friendly international exchange” after receiving the go-ahead from a non-binding vote of its minority shareholders.
Trustco intends to delist from the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), the NSX and the OTCQX in the US. The latter is the top tier of the three marketplaces for the over-the-counter (OTC) trading of stocks in the US.
The move followed after the Financial Services Tribunal (FST) in South Africa in November dismissed an application by Trustco to reconsider a directive by the JSE to correct and restate its financial statements for the year ending 31 March 2019, as well as its interim results for the six months ending 30 September 2019.
Global Credit Rating (GCR) recently placed Trustco’s long and short-term national scale ratings of CCC- and C respectively on a rating watch evolving – the equivalent of a junk rating at international credit rating agencies like Fitch and Moody’s.
A CCC and C rating at international credit rating agencies like Fitch and Moody’s means it is below investment grade or “junk”.
“On a current state basis, we consider the financial profile of the [Trustco] group to be weak,” GCR said in its latest announcement.