Star 2023-05-18

TELKOM shares plunged 30% after the mobile operator said yesterday that it was planning to impair assets by R13 billion in order to migrate legacy units to new generation technologies, while it expected its annual earnings to decline by up to 105%. The assets it is impairing are Openserve, Telkom Consumer, Gyro and BCX. After the group’s release of an early morning trading statement yesterday for the year ended March 31, the shares dived and closed 15.62% down at R26.48 on the JSE yesterday. The counter has decreased by 33.8% in the past year. Telkom said significant market changes and current economic conditions, including accelerated load shedding, low anticipated economic growth rates and a high-interest rate environment, coupled with evolving technological advancements had had an adverse effect on…

The former Eskom board member, dumped R18 million into controversial probe PUBLIC Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan has vowed that his department will launch an investigation into the role of former Eskom board member Busi Mavuso in an intelligence-driven investigation of the power utility while she was a board member. Mavuso, who is the CEO of Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA), pumped R18 million of her organisation’s coffers into a controversial R50m investigation dubbed “Project Ostrich”. The clandestine probe was conducted early last year by George Fivaz Forensic and Risk, a firm owned by former police commissioner George Fivaz, at the behest of former Eskom CEO André de Ruyter without the board’s approval. It is this report which De Ruyter based his allegations during a TV interview in February that…

RETAIL activity in South Africa is expected to remain subdued in the coming months after sales fell to a nine-month low in March, on the back of the rising cost of food, driven by load shedding and higher interest rates. Data from Statistics South Africa (StatsSA) released yesterday showed that retail sales shrank faster than expected, falling by 1.6% in March compared to the same month a year ago. This was the fourth consecutive month of decline in retail activity following an upwardly revised 0.7% fall in February, and the most pronounced since June 2022. This March sales figure was a significant decline compared with market estimates of a 0.7% decrease, as six of the seven retail categories fell, with the ongoing power crisis hitting the food, beverages and tobacco…

Retirement fund actuaries are urging South Africans to make themselves traceable by retirement funds trying to unite former members and beneficiaries with billions in unclaimed benefits. By the end of last year, unclaimed benefits worth R47.3 billion were sitting in retirement funds, says the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA). Jeanine Astrup, a consulting actuary and member of the Actuarial Society of South Africa (ASSA) Retirement Matters Committee, says most retirement funds and their administrators are working with tracing agents in an effort to whittle down the unclaimed assets. This comes at a significant cost for retirement funds, she adds. “The more specialised and intense the search for beneficiaries of unclaimed retirement benefits, the higher the cost implications. Cases where ID numbers, dates of birth or surnames differ, require further…

FROM CHATBOTS and virtual assistants to fraud detection and risk management, artificial intelligence (AI) is being used in many areas of finance. But what could an AI system like ChatGPT do for your bank balance? AI tools might seem overly complex or expensive to non-experts, but advances in natural language processing and machine learning could turn ChatGPT and similar products into virtual personal finance assistants. This would mean having an expert on hand to help you make sense of the latest financial news and data. Staying on top of business news and financial market trends is important for making informed investment decisions and gaining an edge in the markets. Companies use these tools to perform what finance professionals call “sentiment analysis”. This involves analysing financial news and statements to generate…

As newly-weds happily share their marriage vows, divorce and death is probably the last thing on their minds. But as life begins to happen after the wedding, it is critically important that estate planning gets revisited with any major life changes – especially divorce. In the majority of traditional marriages, civil unions and customary weddings conducted in terms of the relevant local legislation, couples typically execute joint or individual wills where they bequeath their assets to the surviving spouse during their marriage. But the rising divorce rate could prove to be a problem for these couples if they do not change the details of their will. According to Statistics South Africa (StatsSA), there were 18 208 completed divorce forms processed in 2021, showing an increase of 13.1% from the…