Steinhoff International, the retailer that is struggling to stay in business after an accounting scandal wiped more than 90% off its value, said its losses widened in the first half of its 2018 financial year and that its liquidity condition remains challenging.

The group recorded a loss of €599m for the six months to March 2018, results showed on Friday. It also restated financial results for the six months to March 2017, wherein it reported a loss of €362m. The company’s bottomline loss for the half-year to June 2018 was €3m.

Its equity position also shrank following the restatement. After originally being at €16.635bn at the end of March 2017, it was restated to €5.692bn. At the end of March 2018, its total equity was €3.793bn.

Steinhoff’s board said it would try to improve the company’s liquidity position so as to continue trading.

"The past seven months has been a very challenging period for the people in our group, and we would like to make use of this opportunity to thank the management and employees of the underlying businesses for their leadership and loyalty to keep the businesses going and retain value for the group under extremely difficult circumstances," the board said.

Steinhoff repaid about €2bn of African debt using proceeds from the sale of its holdings in PSG, KAP and Star; it also received repayment of €1bn from Star, which successfully raised its own funding.

Steinhoff also said that creditors of two of its subsidiaries, Steinhoff Europe and Steinhoff Finance Holdings, agreed to hold off on calling in debts for another three weeks. These lenders had agreed to a deadline of June 30, but Steinhoff requested more time to produce a long-term solution. The period has now been extended to July 20.

The Hawks are investigating three cases related to allegations of fraud at Steinhoff and its subsidiaries. (BusinessDay SA)

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