The News
South African billionaire Robert Gumede is attempting one of the region’s most improbable turnarounds: transforming a century-old sugar producer that collapsed under an accounting scandal into an energy champion.
Gumede’s consortium bought Tongaat Hulett out of near liquidation earlier this year, taking control of a business whose mills and grower networks anchor rural economies across Mozambique, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.
In an interview with Semafor, Gumede said he would turn one crop into three revenue streams under which he would burn leftover sugarcane stalks and fibre to make electricity. He also plans to convert carbon dioxide produced in sugar processing into medical oxygen or beverage-grade CO2, and turn sugarcane into ethanol, which can be blended into petrol.
“Sugar is a … cherry on top,” Gumede told Semafor.
The billionaire said his company, called Vision Sugar, plans to expand the grower base from roughly 17,500 to more than 30,000 and double the roughly 50,000 jobs tied to the value chain, which he said he would use to try and convince regional governments to roll out investor-friendly industrial policy that would allow the company to thrive.
Tongaat tumbled into business rescue — similar to Chapter 11 in the US — after corrupt bookkeeping practices blew a hole in its balance sheet in 2018. That sent shockwaves across the southern African region where Tongaat’s network of mills and refineries tied together independent growers, logistics companies, and food manufacturers.
After a messy process to rescue the firm, Gumede’s Vision Sugar — a group set up with Zimbabwean dealmaker and former Coca-Cola executive Rute Moyo, to revive Tongaat – emerged as the group’s new owner last month, tasked with repairing a battered balance sheet and convincing the government that a radical industrial pivot is possible. Gumede said the company’s operations in Mozambique and Zimbabwe are profitable and in a position to bankroll the turnaround of the South African operations.
In this article:
Know More
Gumede’s blueprint rests on three commercial pillars. First, he proposes upgrading boilers at cane mills and building biomass-fired generation to sell electricity into the national grid and directly to municipal buyers such as eThekwini in Durban, home to sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest port. Second, he would process carbon dioxide and other by-products to produce medical oxygen and beverage-grade gases, seeking offtake deals with suppliers like Afrox — Africa’s biggest industrial gases group owned by Germany’s Linde Group. Third — and most politically charged — he said he would push for a national biofuel blending mandate to require 10% to 15% of every liter of petrol sold in South Africa to be blended with sugarcane-derived ethanol, mirroring Brazil’s long-standing policy.
“Over time, we’ll be valued the same as Sasol is valued,” Gumede said, referring to the $7 billion-plus South African industrial heavyweight that makes fuel from coal. Tongaat is worth roughly $1.1 billion, based on the structuring deal combining Tongaat’s legacy debt converted into equity, and the South African state-owned IDC’s emergency funding that was swapped for shares and working capital.
Gumede said these cheap imports hit local millers hard, pointing out that Tongaat took a $36 million loss last year due to a wave of Brazilian imports.
Industry data shows over 111,000 tons of imported sugar landed in South Africa in the first three months of the 2026/27 season alone — nearly half of the entire previous season’s total. Local producers have warned that without state intervention, subsidized foreign sugar will continue to displace local production. Gumede said he told Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa in a recent meeting that if the region wants to protect rural livelihoods, it must follow trade protection models used by global economies.
Still, Gumede said the immediate financing need is manageable because the company’s operations in Mozambique and Zimbabwe are profitable. He described large landholdings — roughly 140,000 hectares (346,000 acres) in Zimbabwe and 300,000 hectares in Mozambique — and said those assets, together with operating cash flow, will allow Vision to recover its turnaround investment in two to three years.
Tiisetso’s view
Gumede’s pitch for Tongaat is a policy hostage note. He is asking governments to rewrite the rules — mandate ethanol blending, clear grid access, and introduce tariffs on imported sugar — because policy is the linchpin of his conversation from sugar to agri-energy.
That’s one way to spread risk. Tie the turnaround to regulatory changes, and suddenly the upside looks political rather than commercial. The involvement of the IDC, the South African state lender that backs politically sensitive projects, gives the plan institutional cover. The on-the-ground presence of Moyo, one the biggest names in the Zimbabwean dealmaking scene with a board seat in Tongaat Zimbabwean operations, offers execution muscle. Together, they create a pressure on policymakers to choose between underwriting Gumede’s wishlist or watching mill towns hollow out.
Room for Disagreement
From the South African government perspective, Gumede and Moyo are among the first operators to executive on a pre-existing industrial policy, with lawmakers saying they long urged the state and private sector to “work together to save Tongaat, protect jobs and preserve a strategic industry that is central to rural economic development.”
The South African Canegrowers trade body said it is demanding strict laws against cheap Brazil and Thailand imports and pushing for biofuel mandates is basic economic defense to protect a sector that supports hundreds of thousands of people across the region. “Unfairly subsidized sugar from countries such as Brazil and Thailand is currently displacing locally produced sugar and retailers and food and beverage manufacturers,” said Higgins Mdluli, chair of the trade association.
Notable
- South African Deputy Trade Minister Zuko Godlimpi has challenged the local industry to use technology to aggressively bump domestic fuel production from 40% to 55% of petrol sold in the pumps.