Khanya Cold Chain Business Plan — Implementation Roadmap

The timeline from financial close to commissioning on 1 March 2027, covering construction, plant installation and tenant onboarding.

Implementation Roadmap

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13.1 Development programme
13.2 Critical dependencies
13.3 Conditions precedent to drawdown
13.4 Operating milestones after commissioning
13.5 Where the eighteen months before commissioning go

Figure 24. Implementation roadmap — anchor tenancy and ammonia approval gate the programme.

13.1 Development programme

Phase	Months	Activities	Gate
1. Pre-development	0–4	Incorporate; appoint executive team; agree heads of terms on the lease; firm fixed-price refrigeration and envelope tender	Anchor tenancy of 1 200 pallets contracted; notified maximum demand and Megaflex tariff confirmed in writing
2. Approvals and close	2–9	Ammonia major hazard installation risk assessment and emergency plan; municipal and environmental approvals; refrigerant handling registration; funding close	MHI approval issued — the gating item in the programme. Equity drawn and facilities closed
3. Construction	7–17	Lease signed; tenant installation of envelope and panelling; refrigeration plant, ammonia charge and commissioning; solar, battery and standby; racking, docks and materials handling; WMS and control room	Plant validated, temperature pull-down complete
4. Year 1 trading	17–29	Commissioning 1 March 2027; ramp from 19% to 55% occupancy; three rigids operating; FSSC 22000 or BRCGS certification	Certification achieved by month 12 of trading
5. Year 2 and 3	29–53	Occupancy to 68% then 79%; fleet to 6 then 9 vehicles; first capital repayment falls due at the end of the moratorium	Year 3 debt service cover clears 1.30x at 79% occupancy

13.2 Critical dependencies

Dependency	What it gates	Why it cannot be accelerated
Anchor tenancy of 1 200 positions	Every drawdown of capital	Year 1 occupancy of 46% against a 56% break-even is where this plan is most exposed. Contracts take six to nine months to close
Ammonia major hazard installation approval	Commissioning	A statutory process with mandatory risk assessment and emergency planning. Capable of delaying commissioning by months and not within the developer’s control
Notified maximum demand at the connection	The entire energy thesis	A refrigeration plant of this size cannot simply be connected wherever a building is cheapest. Written confirmation is a condition precedent
Firm refrigeration and envelope pricing	Construction drawdown	50% of capital expenditure on indicative pricing. A 15% overrun is R6 675 000
Ten-year lease with renewal options	Fixing R89 800 000 of plant into the building	Negotiating leverage exists only before the plant is installed. A purchase option is close to unobtainable at renewal
Committed R12 000 000 revolver	Year 2 working capital	Sought when Year 2 needs it, it will be priced against a business below covenant. Committed at first close it costs a facility fee
FSSC 22000 or BRCGS certification	Retail-bound and export volume	Not a differentiator but the price of entry. Requires twelve months of operating records

13.3 Conditions precedent to drawdown

Four conditions, all testable before capital is committed

First, anchor tenancy: at least 1 200 pallet positions contracted on multi-year terms with take-or-pay floors, because the Year 1 ramp is where this plan is most exposed and no amount of subsequent effort recovers a slow start. Second, a firm fixed-price quotation for the refrigeration plant and the energy system with retention held to validated performance, since together they are 44 per cent of capital expenditure and a 15 per cent overrun exceeds the contingency. Third, written confirmation of the notified maximum demand available at the connection and of the applicable time-of-use tariff, because the entire energy thesis and roughly five points of margin depend on it. Fourth, the standby revolver committed at first close. None of the four requires capital to test, and all four take calendar time, which is exactly why the development programme allocates seventeen months before commissioning.

13.4 Operating milestones after commissioning

Milestone	Target date	Measure	Consequence if missed
First pallets received	Month 17	Plant validated, temperature pull-down complete, WMS live	Every month of delay is roughly R1.9 million of fixed cost against no revenue
Anchor tenants in occupation	Month 18	1 200 positions occupied under contract	The Year 1 ramp assumption fails at its starting point
32% occupancy	Month 6 of trading	Weekly occupancy report	Trigger point: freeze vehicle purchases and all discretionary capital
FSSC 22000 or BRCGS certification	Month 12 of trading	Certificate issued	Retail-bound and export volume is unavailable; the addressable market narrows sharply
40% average occupancy	Month 12 of trading	Twelve-month average	Trigger point: formal lender review
Blast tunnel utilisation above 35%	Month 18	Tonnes processed against 40 tonnes a day capacity	The premium service is not selling; review pricing and whether capacity was over-specified
Debt service cover above 1.00x	Month 24	Rolling twelve-month EBITDA against service	Trigger point: approach lenders for restructuring before breach
68.9% occupancy	Year 3	Weekly occupancy report	The 1.30x covenant is not met even on a Year 3 test

The occupancy milestones are deliberately set below the plan rather than at it. A business that treats its plan as its floor has no early warning system; one that sets its triggers a few points below has time to act. Each of the four occupancy triggers above corresponds to a committed response in Section 12.4, agreed as board policy before drawdown.

13.5 Where the eighteen months before commissioning go

A funder reviewing this programme should understand that the seventeen months between inception and commissioning are not slack. Three activities run in parallel and each has a hard dependency that cannot be compressed.

Activity	Duration	Why it takes this long	What happens if it is rushed
Anchor tenancy contracting	Months 0 to 11	A six to nine month sales cycle into food manufacturers and protein importers, each of whom is displacing an incumbent arrangement	Positions are contracted at whatever rate is available rather than at the rate card, permanently impairing the revenue base
Ammonia MHI approval	Months 2 to 7	A statutory process requiring a risk assessment, an emergency plan tested with the local authority and competent-person sign-off	Commissioning slips by months against a fixed lease and a fixed interest bill
Construction and commissioning	Months 7 to 17	Envelope, plant installation, ammonia charge, pull-down and validation, each dependent on the previous	Validation failures discovered after product is in the chamber rather than before

The critical path runs through the ammonia approval, not through construction. That is the finding a developer used to conventional industrial fit-out most often misses, and it is why the approval is placed early in the programme and treated as a gate rather than as a parallel workstream. A refrigeration contractor can compress a build; nobody can compress a regulator.

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