Star 2022-11-18

SOUTH African markets followed global peers and ended yesterday in the red as investors continued to fret about how the looming global recession would affect appetite in local stocks. The JSE All Share Index fell 0.62% to 72 155.29 points by close of trading, mainly pushed down by tech stocks and resource-linked companies. South32 led the losses in the commodity stocks, losing 4.39% to R46.58 per share followed by Thungela Resources and Anglo American Platinum which lost 4.02% and 3.26% to R246.60 and R1 621.40 per share, respectively. The JSE’s shine darkened after the US markets also tumbled, with the Dow Jones losing 200 points and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq falling by more than 1% each. Investors have been worried over the prospect of an economic downturn…

This as SA seeks to secure more electricity and gas supplies from the country ESKOM is chasing close to a R1 billion in overdue payment from its Mozambique counterpart Electricidade De Moçambique (EDM), including disputed amounts from 2019, the power utility told Business Report yesterday. This as South Africa seeks to secure more electricity and gas supplies from the country. Eskom with a debt burden of more than R400bn, which the National Treasury has pledged to help with, is scraping the bottom of the barrel for its outstanding payments, including R52bn it is owed by local municipalities. This as it has to fork out billions for diesel and infrastructure maintenance. The outstanding payments from Mozambique came up at Eskom’s State of the System briefing this week where Eskom…

AS THE CURTAIN came down on the COP27 yesterday, environmental activists have called for parties to intensify their efforts to deliver breakthrough agreements on key issues that are far from agreement and have seen little progress so far this week. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) yesterday said that the summit was failing to deliver on the “implementation” theme prioritised by the Egyptian presidency. The WWF urged the negotiators to agree to a finance facility to deal with the pivotal issue of loss and damage. It said that after a year of devastating climate-related weather impacts around the world, including devastating flooding in Pakistan and droughts in Eastern Africa, it was vital a facility was established with concrete money on the table. Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, the WWF global climate and…

JSE- AND LONDON-listed bank and financial services group Investec has announced a R7 billion share buyback to address its surplus capital position in South Africa. Investec directors said at the release of results for the six months to September 30 that they were making progress on their capital optimisation strategy, and the board had approved a proposed share repurchase programme of up to R7bn to the executives over the next 18 months, subject to market conditions. This is the second recent share buyback. On October 3, 2022, the group announced a R1.2bn share buyback, where about 6.9 million shares in Investec plc were purchased. Shares acquired by Investec Limited under the Investec Purchase and Buyback Programme would be additional to the 10 million Investec Limited shares that…

LIFE HEALTHCARE Group’s annual headline earnings slipped 4.5% to 106.1 cents per share even though it saw a strong recovery in surgical and medical activities in southern Africa post the pandemic that resulted in a 9.1% increase in paid patient days. Chief execytive Peter Wharton- Hood said yesterday that group revenue climbed 4.9% to R28.2 billion in the year to September 30, which consisted of a 5% increase in southern African revenue to R20bn, a 2.8% increase in international revenue to R7.7bn and R555 million revenue contribution from growth initiatives. However, a number of one-off items impacted earnings, including a co-investment share scheme for senior management, that resulted in a R136m increase in the share scheme charge. The ending in September 2021 of contracts to assist the…

HARMONY Gold during the quarter period to the end of September suffered lower output and took a production knock amid Eskom load shedding. Harmony said yesterday the ongoing electricity supply crisis, which is forcing Eskom to institute load shedding, negatively impacted “group production, with approximately 3 215 ounces in production lost” from its South African operations. Higher winter electricity tariffs by Eskom’s winter electricity tariff also had a severe financial impact on the company as it contributed to a 5% growth in its all-in sustaining costs that rose to R907 864 per kilogram. Overall bullion production for Harmony dipped 4% for the quarter period under review to 366 390 ounces compared to the same period in the prior year. The dip in production has been…