Johannesburg - Denmark’s Jyske Bank AS became the second money manager to say it won’t lend to South Africa’s Eskom after the nation’s biggest specialist fixed-income manager said it had stopped extending credit to state-owned companies amid concern about their governance.
“We pulled the plug on Eskom too yesterday,” Rune Hejrskov, senior money manager at the Silkeborg, Denmark-based company said on Thursday in emailed comments. “I could easily see more lenders follow suit. We see issues on lending going forward and more governance issues.”
Hejrskov, who helps manage about $1.3 billion at Jyske Bank, said he moved to being underweight in power company Eskom’s bonds from mediumweight. Futuregrowth, with $11.7 billion in assets, told Bloomberg on Wednesday it shelved plans to lend more than R1.8 billion ($123 million) to three state companies this week, citing concerns about how they are being run. Other South African fund managers including Sasfin Asset Managers and Aeon Investment Management expressed support for Futuregrowth, while stopping short of saying they won’t lend to state-owned
