Cape Times 2021-09-02

Edward West edward.west@inl.co.za PROSUS, along with other well-known global brands such as Apple, Danaher and ASML Holdings and Nextera Energy, has been ranked among the top five tech and healthcare companies in the New FutureBrand Index released yesterday. The 2021 FutureBrand Index is an annual perception study of PrticewaterhouseCoopers’ (PwC’s) top 100 companies, and this year revealed extensive changes in the perception of global companies since the start of the pandemic. The Technology sector dominated the index with three of this year’s Top Five coming from this sector: ASML, Apple and Prosus. Apple was the only company to stay in the Top Five from 2020, as the pandemic effect displaced many consumer-facing brands, with many of 2020’s Top Ten displaced by B2B (business-to-business) giants. Brands offering the “pleasure factor”, such…

Edward West edward.west@inl.co.za CASHBUILD, the building materials and associated products group, lifted headline earnings a share by 152 percent to 2 872.6 cents in the year to June 27, due in part to solid revenue growth, which has since come off. Group revenue for the first six weeks after year-end declined 10 percent compared to the same six weeks of the prior year. Nevertheless, in recognition of the good results, and due to cash not used for the R1 billion acquisition of The Building Company that was thwarted by competition authorities, the dividend was raised substantially to 2 211c from 272c, operations director Shane Thoresson said yesterday. Results for the year to June 27 released yesterday showed revenue up 25 percent to R12.62bn. Operating…

Siphelele Dludla siphelele.dludla@inl.co.za INDUSTRIAL activity in the South African manufacturing sector returned to strong growth in August following a record single-month decline in July. The Absa Purchasing Manufacturers Index (PMI) more than recovered from last month’s steep decline, rising to 57.9 points in August from a very low 43.5 points in July. In July, the PMI reading fell to the lowest level since May 2020 as the manufacturing sector suffered severe supply chain disruptions due to civil unrest and lockdown restrictions. Absa said both the output and new orders sub-indices recorded solid improvements during the month. Absa senior economist Miyelani Maluleke said the recovery was always on the cards in August due to normalisation of demand and output for businesses affected by July’s looting, and a further boost…

Parliament told that the national carrier now has less than 1000 employees as pressure mounts for a restart on September 23 Banele Ginindza banele.ginindza@inl.co.za NATIONAL carrier South African Airways (SAA) has reduced its staff complement from 4 000 workers to just under 1 000 workers as pressure mounts for a return to the skies later this month with the Takatso Consortium. Narrating SAA’s position to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Finance yesterday, acting SAA chief executive Thomas Kgokolo said the financial commitments of the airline included a R100 million package paid to workers last month. “The tickets are going on sale, we are engaging stakeholders … we have been mainly focused on fleet planning, we are a much smaller entity, medium short-term,” Kgokolo said. “We had to…

EDWARD WEST edward.west@inl.co.za THE IMMEDIATE outlook for listed property remained uncertain as new variants of the Covid-19 virus were being identified, with possible further waves of the pandemic potentially leading to stricter lockdowns, Rebosis Property Fund said yesterday. Recovery remained dependent on an expedient roll-out of vaccines, the property fund that invests in early stage regional dominant shopping centres and large, single-tenanted office buildings in South Africa said in a pre-close update. The company is burdened with a relatively high level of debt with loan-to-value (LTV) at 72.2 percent at the end of February – generally, the market is comfortable LTVs of 50-40 percent – but in April it announced negotiations were under way with undisclosed, local and offshore parties on a potential transaction that could take LTV to…

IN FEBRUARY this year I said Aveng was transforming from an ugly duckling to a swan. Aveng surprised the market on the upside by reporting headline earnings of R751 million of 2 cents per share for the year ended June 30, 2021, compared to a restated headline loss of 4c per share in the previous year. The swing was a massive R1.7 billion. Really? The group reported a profit after tax of R988m for the 2021 financial year and R723m if the exchange losses on translating foreign operations are taken into account. Yes, it was supported by operating earnings swinging to a positive R536m from a loss of R532m in the prior year. But the 2021’s profit after tax was massively impacted by once-off or abnormal items…