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Kumba appoints new CEO, H1 earnings rise 20%

26 July 2016 Comments (0) Africa, Business, Latest Updates from Reuters

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Kumba Iron Ore said on Tuesday that Themba Mkhwanazi would take the helm as chief executive from Sept 1, replacing Norman Mbazima, who is stepping down to focus on his role as deputy chairman of Anglo American South Africa.

* Mkhwanazi, a former Rio Tinto manager, has been chief executive officer of Anglo American’s Coal South Africa business since May 2014.

* Kumba’s first-half results came in as expected, with the Anglo American unit posting a 20 percent rise in headline earnings per share to 9.41 rand.

* Kumba had flagged to the market that it expected first-half profit to increase between 14 and 23 percent because of a deferred tax asset in the comparative period.

 

(Reporting by Ed Stoddard; Editing by Joe Brock)

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Mauritius exporters see Brexit crimping textile export earnings to UK by 10%

25 July 2016 Comments (0) Africa, Business, Latest Updates from Reuters

PORT LOUIS (Reuters) – Revenues generated by Mauritius from textile exports to Britain will decline by about 10 percent this year as a result of the British vote to leave the European Union, the country’s export association said on Monday.

The EU is Mauritius’ largest trading partner. The Indian Ocean island nation earns an annual average of 25.55 billion rupees ($722.77 million) from goods shipments to the bloc.

Britain remains the largest buyer of Mauritian goods within the EU, accounting for 18 percent of total exports to the bloc. Textiles are Mauritius’ top export to the UK, followed by seafood and sugar.

“Quantity wise, there will be a drop of 10 percent in our exports to the UK as a consequence of the fall in consumerism level in UK coupled with the depreciation of the pound,” the export group said in a report.

The Mauritius Exports Association (MEXA) report said 90 percent of all revenues from exports of textile and apparels to the UK comes in pounds while imports are in U.S. dollars.

MEXA said exporters’ profitability is expected to be “squeezed both in terms of exports and imports; exports revenue being depleted with the depreciation of the pound…and costs being inflated with the appreciation of the U.S. dollar.

“Companies are thereby faced with a double whammy.”

In 2015, textile and apparel exports to Britain amounted to 6.57 billion rupees, according to MEXA data.

($1 = 35.3500 Mauritius rupees)

 

(Reporting by Jean Paul Arouff; editing by Elias Biryabarema and Mark Heinrich)

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South Africa’s Standard Bank awarded banking license in Ivory Coast

25 July 2016 Comments (0) Africa, Business, Latest Updates from Reuters

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South Africa’s Standard Bank has been awarded a banking license in Ivory Coast, one of Africa’s fastest growing economies, extending its reach to 20 countries on the continent, the lender said on Monday.

“Standard Bank – trading as Stanbic Bank – has been formally awarded a banking license in Côte d’Ivoire,” it said in a statement, adding that it was gearing up to commence banking operations but did not give a timeframe.

 

(Reporting by TJ Strydom; Editing by James Macharia)

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Caixabank bid for Banco BPI hits new snag as vote on rights cap delayed

22 July 2016 Comments (0) Africa, Business, Latest Updates from Reuters

PORTO, Portugal (Reuters) – A meeting of shareholders in Portugal’s Banco BPI, that started on Friday and was expected to lift a 20 percent limit on voting rights, was suspended until September due to a legal injunction, in a new snag for a takeover bid by Spain’s Caixabank.

The bid is opposed by the bank’s No. 2 shareholder, Angolan investor Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of Angola’s president. Caixabank has said its bid hinges on the scrapping of the voting rights limit, which has so far allowed dos Santos to fend off its attempts to control the country’s third-largest lender.

Chairman of the BPI board Artur Santos Silva said the injunction blocked the vote due to a minor procedural issue, which Santos Silva expected to be resolved by Tuesday.

He said Caixabank had then proposed to postpone the meeting for 45 days, which shareholders approved. Portugal’s market regulator CMVM had suspended trading in BPI shares on Friday awaiting the result of the vote.

“I am very sorry about this situation … which is hard to understand,” he said, adding the injunction was based on the fact that the minutes of the board meeting that set Friday’s vote had lacked a formal seal of approval. “On Tuesday this problem will disappear,” he said.

He did not name the shareholder who launched the injunction, but shareholders at the meeting said Portuguese shareholder Violas Ferreira, who has a 2.7 percent stake in BPI, had presented it.

Thanks to a government decree in April aimed at putting an end to voting right limits in the banking sector, Caixabank would have voted with its full 45 percent stake in BPI to lift the cap. The motion requires a two-thirds majority to pass.

In April, Caixabank launched a takeover bid for the lender, offering 1.113 euros per share, less than its initial offer of 1.329 euros, which dos Santos fended off last year.

Dos Santos has already said the price is too low and wants an independent auditor to fix a minimum price for BPI shares, above the current offer. She has also accused the government of making an “unprecedented and clearly partial” decision in changing the law on rights limits.

But BPI’s board has called the new offer “opportune and friendly”, if low. It said an eventual takeover should help resolve the problem of BPI’s excessive exposure to risky Angolan assets and better prepare the lender to meet growing capital requirements from regulators.

BPI, which draws most of its profit from Angola, has been affected by a change in European rules that classify all exposure to the African country as risky and to be fully provisioned for, significantly reducing BPI’s solvency ratios. It has to cut the exposure and comply soon or pay hefty fines.

 

(Reporting By Sergio Goncalves, writing by Andrei Khalip, editing by Axel Bugge and Susan Thomas)

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Morocco annual inflation rises to 2.3% in June

22 July 2016 Comments (0) Business, Latest Updates from Reuters, Middle East

RABAT (Reuters) – Morocco’s annual consumer price inflation rose to 2.3 percent in June from 1.9 percent in May, due to higher food prices, the High Planning Authority said on Friday.

Annual food inflation jumped to 4.4 percent from 3.6 percent in the previous month as June coincided with the holy fasting month of Ramadan. Non-food price inflation rose slightly to 0.6 percent in the 12 months to June from an annual 0.5 percent in May.

Transport costs fell 0.6 percent, but hotels and restaurants were 2.4 percent more expensive, the agency said without giving details.

On a month-on-month basis, the consumer price index eased to 0.4 percent in June, down from 0.5 percent in May as food price inflation was steady at 0.8 percent.

 

(Reporting By Aziz El Yaakoubi; Editing by Catherine Evans)

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Mauritius’ trade deficit widens 22.1% in May

22 July 2016 Comments (0) Africa, Business, Latest Updates from Reuters

PORT LOUIS (Reuters) – Mauritius said on Friday its trade deficit widened 22.1 percent to 6.91 billion rupees ($195.47 million) in May from the same period a year earlier, hit by a dip in exports of machinery and transport equipment.

The Indian Ocean island nation’s earnings from exports fell 6.5 percent from a year before to 7.46 billion rupees in May, the government’s statistics office said in a statement. The United States was the main destination for Mauritius’s exports, followed by France and Britain.

Foreign sales of machinery and transport equipment declined to 687 million rupees in May from 1.19 billion rupees in the same period last year.

Total imports rose 5.4 percent from a year before to 14.37 billion rupees in May. Some 20.3 percent of imports in the period came from China.

 

($1 = 35.3500 Mauritius rupees)

 

(Reporting by Jean Paul Arouff; Editing by Elias Biryabarema and Catherine Evans)

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Kenya Airways says full-year pretax loss narrows 12%

21 July 2016 Comments (0) Africa, Business, Latest Updates from Reuters

NAIROBI (Reuters) – Kenya Airways Ltd narrowed its pretax loss by 12.2 percent to 26.1 billion shillings ($257 million) in the year to end-March, it said on Thursday.

The carrier, which is part-owned by Air France KLM, has been reducing its fleet, selling land and cutting jobs to recover from losses caused by a slump in tourism and the cost of renewing its fleet.

Finance director Dick Murianki said the airline, which says it ferries 11,500 passengers a day, reduced its operating loss by 75 percent.

Gross profit rose 42 percent and the operating loss shrank to 4.1 billion shillings.

“We have taxied and we are aligned for take-off,” he told an investor briefing.

Passengers numbers rose to 4.23 million from 4.18 million as the proportion of occupied seats, the “cabin factor”, rose 5 percent to 68.3 percent.

However, a firmer dollar against the shilling during the year, higher financing costs and fuel hedging losses offset the impact of higher revenue, the airline said.

Chief Executive Mbuvi Ngunze said they were raising funds to support the airline’s recovery. He did not give details.

He said the main risk facing the carrier was uncertainty around Kenya’s presidential election, set for August 2017.

The airline’s shares fell 10 percent to 4.25 shillings midway through the session, after the results were released.

 

($1 = 101.4000 Kenyan shillings)

 

(Reporting by Duncan Miriri; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)

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SABMiller sales hurt by economic volatility in Africa

21 July 2016 Comments (0) Africa, Business, Latest Updates from Reuters

LONDON (Reuters) – Brewer SABMiller, in the process of being bought by Anheuser-Busch InBev, reported lower quarterly revenue on Thursday, hurt by tough conditions in some African markets.

The maker of beers such as Castle Lager, Peroni and Grolsch said group net revenue fell 4 percent in its first quarter, ended June 30, with volume flat.

Excluding the impact of acquisitions, disposals and currency fluctuations, revenue rose 2 percent as gains in Europe, South Africa and Latin America offset more challenging conditions in other African markets, where volume was hurt by economic volatility and tough conditions.

In its trading statement on Thursday, which comes ahead of its annual general meeting, SABMiller did not mention its pending $107 billion takeover by Anheuser-Busch InBev, which received approval by the United States on Wednesday.

The takeover of the London-listed brewer has come under scrutiny in recent weeks as a drop in the British currency has reduced the relative attractiveness of the all-cash offer aimed at most SAB shareholders.

Two activist hedge funds, TCI and Elliott Advisors, have taken small stakes in the brewer, raising the possibility that shareholders may push to try to get improved terms.

 

(Reporting by Martinne Geller; Editing by Mark Potter)

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South Africa’s Astral weighs job cuts as drought, imports hurt poultry producers

20 July 2016 Comments (0) Africa, Business, Latest Updates from Reuters

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South African poultry producer Astral has to cut jobs, it said on Wednesday, under pressure from high feed prices due to drought and from an over-supplied domestic market.

Maize prices in South Africa have hit record highs as an El Nino triggers the largest rainfall shortages in over a century, while cheap chicken imports flood in with the ending of punitive duties on U.S. chicken imports in 2015.

Analysts said production cuts were likely to be accompanied by mergers and acquisitions as companies across the food sector scramble to offset falling revenues.

“A lot of producers are suffering under current conditions and a lot them will be forced to become very, very competitive,” said Global Trader equities analyst Paul Chakaduka.

Shares in Astral slipped more than 4 percent on Wednesday after the firm delivered its operational update.

It said the impact of rising feed costs, record poultry imports and a weak consumer market was more severe than it had originally anticipated.

“The impact of the planned production cutbacks will unfortunately negatively impact on the labour force due to the reduction in hours to be worked,” Astral said.

The company employs about 13,000 people across operations in South Africa, Zambia, Mozambique and Swaziland, with a combined processing capacity of nearly 5 million broiler chickens a week.

Astral said it had implemented an import strategy to hedge against maize shortages and high prices, but if conditions did not improve it would have to consider further cuts to production and jobs.

Government expects the 2016 maize harvest to come in 28 percent lower at 7.16 million tonnes, with an improved harvest only in 2017 with a return of more rainfall.

Astral’s fellow poultry producers RCL Foods and Quantum Foods have also struggled in 2016, both citing the effect of drought, costlier raw materials, and lower demand made worse by high unemployment and climbing food inflation.

In May, Quantum reported headline earnings per share at 14.8 cents versus 26.3 cents in 2015. RCL reported HEPS up 25 percent to 87.2 cents, higher due to its diversified products.

Astral previously said it saw HEPS falling around 30 percent to between 801 cents and 701 cents per share for the six months to end March.

Share prices in all three of the poultry producers are lower compared to a year ago.

“These stocks may continue to become cheaper but it doesn’t mean they’re in buy territory. It only means they’ve become extremely uncompetitive or that you could see further mergers and acquisitions in the sector,” Chakaduka said.

 

(By Mfuneko Toyana. Reporting by Mfuneko Toyana; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)

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Kenya’s new vehicle sales plunge 30% in first half

20 July 2016 Comments (0) Africa, Business, Latest Updates from Reuters

NAIROBI (Reuters) – The number of new vehicles sold in Kenya dropped 30.2 percent in the first six months of this year from the same period last year mainly due to high lending rates.

Most buyers of new vehicles, like light commercial trucks, rely on asset financing facilities by banks and interest rates were as high as 24 percent during the period.

The east African nation’s car market is dominated by low-priced second-hand imports from countries such as Japan, but investors monitor new car sales to gauge the health of the economy.

Vehicle assemblers, including GM, sold 6,946 cars in the period, down from 9,953 in the first half of last year, The Kenya Vehicle Manufacturers Association said.

Sales were not expected to pick up soon due to political uncertainty over an election set for next August and a new 20 percent excise duty on new vehicles imposed by the Treasury last month, the association said.

 

(Reporting by Duncan Miriri; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)

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