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October 03, 2023
Africa-news (597)
The rand weakened on Thursday afternoon trade as market analysts digested the news that President Cyril Ramaphosa may be impeached following a panel of experts’ findings against him.
A consortium of cane growers that supplies Tongaat Hulett has expressed interest in acquiring the assets of the embattled sugar producer. They believe their offer is one of the few viable options to save 11 000 small-scale growers and 20 000 cane grower jobs.
Electricity shortages that have been plaguing Zimbabwe are set to worsen after an authority that manages the country’s biggest dam said water levels are now too low to continue power-generation activities.
Elon Musk’s internet service Starlink is set to be available in Tanzania in the first quarter of 2023, with analysts cautiously saying the new development will boost the digital economy.
The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) told economists that it needs to see consumer inflation steadily decline to the 4.5% mid-point of its targeted range before it will consider pausing or stopping its current rate hiking cycle.
South African Reserve Bank (SARB) governor Lesetja Kganyago says that inflation is ravaging the incomes of South Africans and that the central bank will continue using its current hiking policy to bring it under control.
Ghana's government is working on a new policy to buy oil products with gold rather than U.S. dollar reserves, Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia said.
The Clicks Group has announced the acquisition of beauty company, Sorbet, for a cash consideration of R105 million.
South Africa’s central bank is poised to prolong its most aggressive interest-rate hiking cycle in at least two decades on Thursday, underlining its commitment to tame stubbornly high inflation even as the economy flirts with recession.
Emerging markets’ debt-to-GDP ratio returned to record highs despite a US$6.4 trillion decline in the global debt pile to US$290 trillion in the third quarter due to a strong dollar and slowing bond sales, an Institute of International Finance (IFF) report found.
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Malawi became the first low-income nation to receive financing from the IMF under a new tool intended to help countries cope with global food price shocks.
Financial services group Old Mutual has received approval from the SA Reserve Bank's prudential authority to apply for a banking licence.
This will help it expand its relationship with some of its customers and secure cheaper sources of funding available through accepting retail deposits.
The firm plans to spend R1.75 billion on building the bank's transactional capacity, eyeing a launch in the second half of 2024. It expects this bank to break even three years after launch. It has already spent R830 million on the bank in the current year.
Old Mutual already has existing lending and transactional products, through its Money Account, as well as an unsecured lending product. This is largely aimed at the lower- to middle-income markets. Because it doesn't have a banking licence, this requires a commercial relationship with a third party, and the firm's Money Account is in association with Bidvest Bank.
As of the end of June, the end of the group's half-year, loans and advances within that cluster stood at R14.78 billion, while net interest income came in at just above R1 billion. In the firm's 2021 year, banking and lending results from operations, which includes both SA and the rest of Africa, came in at R1.68 billion, compared to R4.38 billion for the group.
Old Mutual said on Tuesday an establishment of a bank would allow it to hold the primary relationship with customers, "driving greater regular interaction with them and enhancing the cross-sell opportunity across the group. It will also enable the group to accept retail deposits, thereby providing a cheaper source of funding'.
Old Mutual also provided a business update for its nine months to end-September on Tuesday, saying that its results from operations were above the prior period, mainly driven by profits in its life business, resulting from lower Covid-19 excess deaths.
"Despite market volatility, Old Mutual Investments delivered higher asset-based fees due to the higher average asset base levels which positively impacted profits. This was partially offset by deteriorating persistency experience in Mass and Foundation Cluster and net catastrophe losses related to the KwaZulu-Natal floods as well as an increase in attritional claims in Old Mutual for the year to date," it said. Persistency refers to the renewal of policies.-fin24
Botswana has picked India's Jindal Steel & Power Ltd as the preferred bidder in a tender to build a 300 megawatt (MW) coal-fired power plant, a notice from its energy ministry showed on Monday.