Defence company Paramount filed for bankruptcy in the US after suffering defeat in a long-running business dispute.
The United Arab Emirates-based company, founded by Ivor Ichikowitz in South Africa, filed for Chapter 11 on Thursday in Delaware. It listed assets of between $500 million and $1 billion and liabilities of between $100 million and $500 million in its bankruptcy petition.
In a statement following the Chapter 11 filing, Paramount said the bankruptcy is intended to address an arbitration penalty it received this month following a dispute dating to 2022 with an unnamed Middle Eastern company.
Paramount said the filing involves "a limited number of its non-operating entities," won’t affect its global operations and will allow the company to pursue counterclaims. Chapter 11 bankruptcy allows a company to keep operating while it works out a plan to repay creditors.
Formed at the end of apartheid in South Africa in 1994, Paramount became Africa’s largest privately owned defence and aerospace company. It makes armoured cars, maritime patrol and escort vessels and began producing the Mwari — the first military aircraft made in South Africa since the 1980s — in 2022.
