Star 2021-06-07

Much expected from StatsSA release of results of the gross domestic product for the first quarter of 2021 Siphelele Dludla siphelele.dludla@inl.co.za SOUTH Africa’s economic growth is expected to have slowed in the first quarter of 2021 as lockdown restrictions and power supply challenges continued to plague activity. Statistics South Africa (StatsSA) will tomorrow release the results of the gross domestic product (GDP) for the first quarter of 2021 following significant growth in the last quarter of 2020. Real GDP increased at an an- nualised rate of 6.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2020, driven by the manufacturing sector, as further easing of Covid-19 lockdown re- strictions boosted consumer buying power. However, recent unemployment figures showing that 32.6 percent, or 7.2 million people, were without jobs in…

GERMANY-based instant grocery delivery company Flink on Friday announced a $240 million (R3.22 billion) Series A funding round lead by Prosus and other investors. Flink has more than 50 hubs in 18 cities after four months of operations, reaching more than three million custom- ers directly. At the same time, a partner- ship had been agreed with REWE Group, one of the largest supermarket chains across Germany. Friday’s announcement followed other recent investments by Prosus in the European food delivery and grocery sector. In April, Prosus co-led a €223m (R3.64bn) investment round in Norwegian e-grocery business, Oda. While the food delivery companies within the Prosus portfolio have all rolled out online grocery delivery, this represented Prosus’s first direct investment in an online grocery business, a market expected…

EDWARD WEST edward.west@inl.co.za Volaris on Friday increased its cash offer for Adapt IT to R7 from R6.50 per share as the Canada-based group upped the ante in a takeover battle that has already seen Huge Group significantly up its earlier share-swop offer for Adapt IT. The increased offer represents a 68 percent premium to the price of Adapt IT shares of R4.16 on April 1, 2021, which was the last trading date prior to the date on which Volaris and Adapt IT had entered into the “Volaris Offer Agreement”. Adapt IT’s shares traded 2.3 percent lower at R6.84 on Friday. “As a result of the increased offer, the Independent Board engaged the Independent Expert, Nodus Capital, to provide an opinion on the increase in view of their fair…

MULTICHOICE Group said on Friday that it expects core headline earnings a share for the year to March 31 to be between 32 percent (182 cents) and 37 percent (211c) higher than the prior year’s 569c. Trading profit was expected to be between 25 percent (R2 billion) and 30 percent (R2.4bn) higher than the R8bn reported the prior year, the group said in a trading update. On a constant currency basis and excluding mergers and acquisitions, trading profit was expected to be between 40 percent (R3.2bn) and 45 percent (R3.6bn) higher than the prior year’s reported R8bn. The improved financial performance was achieved despite macro-economic and Covid-19 challenges across the continent. “Resilient revenue growth, strong cost control, shifts in content costs and the…

Andrew Lee FEW OF US will ever forget the feelings of utter confusion, despair and helplessness that descended when South Africa’s initial pandemic lockdown was imposed. With the local vaccination programme finally under way, we could be forgiven for wanting to firmly and decisively close the book on the pandemic and all the consequential damage it wreaked. However, as Winston Churchill once said “those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it”. While our life and funeral insurance industry has mostly handled consequent claims and losses with efficiency and compassion, the general insurance industry has struggled with losses – the scale of which was never anticipated nor funded for. Clearly, the private insurance industry does not have the capacity to carry this risk alone into…

Johann van Tonder ALL COUNTRIES have their own laws, regulations and policies, and this to a very large extent determines the environment within which jobs can be created. Should such an environment not be “job creation friendly”, a country will not be able to create as many jobs as it otherwise could have. Job creation becomes even more difficult when a pandemic such as Covid-19 causes regular restrictions on an economy’s ability to grow and create jobs. South Africa’s labour market numbers for the first quarter should be interpreted within this context. Statistics SA (StatsSA) estimated South Africa’s official unemployment rate at 32.6 percent in the first quarter of 2021, marginally higher than the 32.5 percent estimated in the fourth quarter of 2020. However, context is needed…