Star 2021-06-25

banele ginindza banele.ginindza@inl.co.za THE TIT-FOR-TAT spat between South Africa and Delta intensified yesterday with government insiders claiming that the airline needed to stick to the foreign operator’s permit to allow it a stop in Cape Town on the return segment of its Atlanta-Johannesburg service. Officials of the Department of Transport accused Delta Airlines of bullying and dictating the terms in the domestic market. The officials said there were not only issues of inexistent bilateral agreements but that Delta wanted to dictate terms of its operations against the country’s interests. “Everyone wants to land and pick up passengers in Cape Town. That though kills the market for Johannesburg and Durban respectively,“ an official who spoke on condition of anonymity told Business Report. ”If you go to the United Kingdom for instance,…

Sandile Mchunu sandile.mchunu@inl.co.za STEINHOFF International subsidiary Pepco Group yesterday reported a double-digit growth in half-year earnings despite the impact of Covid-19 across the geographies in which it operates. The fast-growing pan-European discount retailer reported a 16.8 percent increase in underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation to €324 million (R5.5 billion) for the six months to end March, attri- buted to continued revenue growth, gross margin expansion and effective cost management. However, the Pepco Group felt the impact of Covid-19 as lockdown measures and trading restrictions impacted the business across Europe, with store closures reducing consumer footfall. Pepco, a non-essential retailer, lost 19 percent of its trading weeks during the period as result of the store closures, which included extended store closures in Poland and the…

EDWARD WEST edward.west@inl.co.za The Finance Services Conduct Authority (FSCA) is considering declaring crypto assets a financial product, which will give it jurisdiction over these transactions following the latest scam Africrypt, where investors lost a staggering R54 billion. In the latest scam, South African cryptocurrency investment company AfriCrypt allegedly defrauded about $3.6bn in investor funds after the company claimed its trading system was “hacked”. About 69 000 bitcoins were stolen. Africrypt founders Ameer Cajee and his brother Raees Cajee allegedly transferred the funds from a South African account before fleeing to the UK. The FSCA said yesterday it was investigating whether a financial product or service was offered to the public, which would have required Africrypt to be registered with the authority, but at this stage it…

EDWARD WEST edward.west@inl.co.za GROWTHPOINT Properties was in a strong financial position despite continuing uncertainty in the economy, pressures on net operating income in the South African portfolio and the knock-on effect on property valuations. The group said yesterday in a nine-month trading update to March 31 that the focus remained to reinforce the balance sheet, which would en- able it to pursue internationalisation, optimise the local portfolio, and generate new income streams from funds management and third-party trading and development. The R4.3 billion of equity raised last November, R577 million proceeds from the December 2020 Distribution Reinvestment Plan, R827m retained for the 2020 year and R499m retained from the first half of financial 2021, had all bolstered the balance sheet, the group’s management said. Loan to value was 40.7…

Dineo Faku dineo.faku@inl.co.za KUMBA Iron Ore, South Africa’s biggest iron ore producer, yesterday flagged a surge of at least 150 percent in earnings for the six months ended June 2021 compared to a year earlier buoyed by strong iron ore prices. Kumba, an Anglo American plc subsidiary, which owns the Sishen and Kolomela mines in the Northern Cape, expects headline earnings and basic earnings to be R12.6 billion and R12.6bn higher, respectively, in the half year ended June 2021 compared to a year earlier. Headline earnings a share and basic earnings a share were likely to be at least R39.29 a share and R39.32 a share, respectively, at least 150 percent higher than the headline earnings a share and earnings per share reported in the previous year. A…

Siphelele Dludla siphelele.dludla@inl.co.za SOUTH African consumers will have to bear the brunt of higher prices for goods for a little longer as producer prices rose near a five-year high last month. Data from Statistics South Africa (StatsSA) yesterday showed that annual headline producer price inflation (PPI) jumped by 7.4 percent from a year earlier in May. This May producer inflation print followed a 6.7 percent rise in April and was slightly above market expectations of a 7.3 percent surge. StatsSA said this was the highest producer inflation rate since July 2016 when the rate was also 7.4 percent. The PPI was driven, as the prices of coke, petroleum, chemical, rubber and plastic products rose by 17.1 percent. Food, beverages and tobacco increased by 6.2…