Star 2023-06-06

BUSINESSES in South Africa have remained optimistic about the year-ahead outlook in spite of activity plunging deeper into contractionary territory for the third month in a row in May. The S&P Global South Africa Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) released yesterday fell from 49.6 points in April to 47.9 points in May. This PMI reading was the steepest decline in business activity since July 2021, pointing to the third consecutive month of contraction in the country’s private sector activity. S&P said that underlying the downturn was a sharp and quicker contraction in business activity, which decreased to the greatest extent since July 2021. The declines were seen in the industry, construction, wholesale and retail, and services sectors, with survey panellists saying the contraction in output was again mainly driven…

ABSA GROUP’S R10 billion black economic empowerment (BEE) at recent share price values, one of the largest empowerment transactions in recent times, has been given the green light by its shareholders to proceed and possibly be implemented by September. Yesterday the share closed 1.35% up at R158.23 on the JSE. However, the share price has fallen roughly 22% since the BEE deal was first announced, shaving nearly R1bn off the proposed transaction, with Absa’s market capitalisation currently sitting at R132bn. South African banking shares have taken a beating as the rand falls against a stronger dollar and as the country’s fiscal outlook deteriorates amid an escalating power crisis. Absa first announced the deal in March. The bank said yesterday that its shareholders last week voted in favour of the…

Country’s main airports accused of wanting to raise some charges by 38% and 63% AIRPORTS Company South Africa (Acsa) yesterday refuted statements by the International Air Transport Association (Iata) that the local airport operator intended to increase airport charges by 38% with Air Traffic Control slated to implement a 63% hike in navigation charges. This at a time South Africans are confronted with higher air fares in the wake of Covid-19, which devastated the sector, and after players, such as Comair, in the local aviation sector, hit the wall. In his address at the Iata Annual General Meeting and World Air Transport Summit held yesterday, the director-general of Iata, Willie Walsh, said some airports and air navigating service providers were shifting costs to airlines. He said there were “grievous examples…

OPERATIONS on the Transnet Freight Rail (TFR) Iron Corridor had been severely dis- rupted due to a derailment and a separate incident of cable theft the Transnet subsidi- ary said in a statement. The iron ore railway line is 861km long and runs between Sishen in the Northern Cape and Saldanha in the Western Cape. The line was specially built to be able to run heavy iron ore trains. Min- ing clients that use TFR, include Exxaro, Kumba Iron Ore, Thungela Resources among others. Both events had significantly impacted its ability to continue with normal operations, causing inconvenience and delays to its customers. “At approximately 02:05 (yesterday morning), 20 iron-ore loaded wagons derailed between Loop 9 and 10. Our teams are on the ground currently trying to establish the cause…

MONDI yesterday said that it terminated a 95 billion rouble ($1.17 billion or R23bn) deal to sell its largest plant in Russia to an investment vehicle owned by Russian billionaire Viktor Kharitonin due to a “lack of progress” in getting approvals. London-listed shares in Mondi, a British paper and packaging firm, yesterday had fallen 3.29% on the JSE by the end of the day. The company had agreed to sell Mondi Syktyvkar, a pulp, packaging paper and uncoated fine paper mill located in the capital of the Komi Republic in Russia, to Augment Investments in August last year. While the deal with Augment Investments was off, Mondi said on yesterday that it “remained committed to divest the plant and will continue to assess all alternative divestment options”. Many companies…

IT IS WELL-known that human sight and vision are vital in how we view the world around us. Although often treated as synonyms, sight and vision are two very different concepts. Sight is physical – it is a sensory experience in which the reflected light from shapes and objects enters through the cornea and lens to reach the retina via the optic nerve. Signals are then sent to the brain where it is converted into images. Vision is how the mind – a person’s ability to think and reason – interprets these images, often based on past learning and memories. Vision is therefore a metaphysical concept. Sight enables a person to witness an event, but vision helps the person to understand the significance of the particular event and draw interpretations…