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Siphelele Dludla siphelele.dludla@inl.co.za SOUTH Africa’s power utility has dimmed a flicker of hope for the expected economic recovery, as it began rolling out rotational power cuts that could hamper industrial activity and business confidence. Eskom yesterday announced five days of scheduled power cuts until Monday morning, after “numerous generating unit breakdowns” since the weekend at several of its power stations. Eskom CEO André de Ruyter said the power utility was battling challenges mainly at four power stations. He said the Duvha and Tutuka power stations were running at half capa- city, as three of the six generation units at each station were off-line due to breakdowns. Total breakdowns amounted to 14 994MW, while planned mainten- ance was 4 435MW of capacity, as Eskom continued with reliability maintenance. De…
Edward West edward.west@inl.co.za ASTRAL Foods’ share price shot up 8.6 percent yesterday morning, after it announced that earnings and headline earnings were expected to increase by at least 100 percent in the six months to March 31, 2022. The integrated poultry producer said in a trading update that headline earnings per share would be at least 1 194 cents for the interim period, compared with 597c for the comparative period in 2021. Earnings a share would be at least 1 184c compared with 592c in the comparative period in 2021. The share price traded at R184.77. The positive update also generated chatter on Twitter with, for instance, @fintasticdata saying the company had a few red flags in 2021, including return on assets down 20…
Banele Ginindza banele.ginindza@inl.co.za TRANSNET said yesterday that more time was needed to unpack the recommendations of Acting Chief Justice Raymond Zondo’s report regarding the large-scale looting of the logistics group’s financial resources and assess where the state-owned firm was on its governance journey to recovery after years of state capture bled it dry. Transnet, under new management in the past few years, has tried to turn the tide on its governance practices and recover billions of rand fleeced from the firm by individuals and companies. Justice Zondo, in a report released this week, made strong recommendations of law enforcement and judicial action against former executives, including former chief executives Siyabonga Gama and Brian Molefe and Gupta associates, who were instrumental in carving off pieces of the entity responsible for…
Edward West edward.west@inl.co.za ASCENDIS Health, which has narrowly averted going into business rescue, should be free of debt, with some cash to spare to rebuild, following the planned sale of three subsidiaries. The company, which has a new board after shareholders opposed the restructuring plans of the previous management that had included a rights issue, said late on Monday that it would be left with only its consumer brands business after the planned disposals. This business comprises seven main vitamin and supplement brands such as Solal, Vitaforce and Bettaway, as well as manufacturing capacity. The share price closed 2.44 percent lower at R0.80 on the JSE yesterday, an indication of how badly the company has performed, considering that it was trading at R22.75 five years ago. The board, now…
Dieketseng Maleke dieketseng.maleke@inl.co.za WHILE the Covid-19 pandemic re- mained challenging in Glencore’s ferrochrome, nickel, and oil operating environment in 2021, its operations largely performed in line with guidance expectations, chief executive Gary Nagle said yesterday. The share rose by 2.55 percent to close at R82.82 on the JSE yesterday. Of note, the diversified mining firm yesterday reported 43 percent higher ferrochrome production in its full-year 2021 production report. However, the outputs of all other commodities were down, including overall coal being 3 percent lower, copper declined by 5 percent, zinc dropped 4 percent, lead decreased by 14 percent, nickel down 7 percent, gold showed a 12 percent decline, while silver was down 4 percent. Oil output increased by 34 percent…
Dieketseng Maleke dieketseng.maleke@inl.co.za DE BEERS, a unit of Anglo American, recorded a robust sales cycle as consumer demand for diamond jewellery increased during the festive season. Anglo American owns 85 percent in De Beers and holds 10 sales meetings with selected buyers annually, referred to as cycles. The sales for the first cycle amounted to $663 million (R10.14 billion) and were higher than the $336m of diamonds sold during the 10th and final sales cycle of last year. “Owing to the restrictions on the movement of people and products in various jurisdictions around the globe, De Beers Group has continued to implement a more flexible approach to rough diamond sales during the first sales cycle of 2022, with the Sight event extended beyond its normal week-long duration.…
