Cape Times CT-2021-04-01

Sandile Mchunu sandile.mchunu@inl.co.za ASCENDIS Health yesterday swung into a massive R673.80 million loss from a R204.96m profit last year as rising debt, higher finance costs, increased tax expenses and impairments hurt its performance during the six months to end December. The health and wellness company said that it incurred a R246m impairment during the period with a tax expense increasing to R139m and net debt rising to R6.6 billion. The group said this pushed its normalised headline earnings down 131 percent to a loss of R43m, with normalised headline loss per share from continuing operations of 9 cents a share. It said revenue, however, surged 33 percent to R3.98 billion, despite the losses, with normalised operating profit increasing by 27 percent to R486m. Chief executive…

EDWARD WEST edward.west@inl.co.za CEMENT and building materials group PPC’s shares shot up 18.23 percent on the JSE yesterday to R2.40 after it announced that it had made good progress in de-risking its balance sheet and improving its investment prospects. The group said that the removal of a potential $175 million (R2.61 billion)liability in PPC Barnett in Democratic Republic of Congo, and improved cement sales, cost reductions, better working capital management and cash preservation over 11 months to end-February 2021, meant that lenders had agreed to postpone by six months a R750m capital raise planned for yesterday. It said the need for the capital raise would also be reviewed should the South African business continue to de-gear as it had already done, the group said in an operational update.…

Sandile Mchunu sandile.mchunu@inl.co.za STEINHOFF International rose nearly 6 percent on the JSE yesterday morning after the troubled retailer received support from four large active claimant groups (ACGs) for the implementation of its proposal to resolve multi-jurisdictional legacy litigation against it. The group said that the four active claimants represented market purchases based in South Africa and abroad. It said the four, Burford Capital LLC, Deminor Recovery Services, SA/DRS Belgium SC and DRRT/Therium had promised to recommend that their respective constituents accept the group’s July 2020 global settlement proposal which was further revised early this year. The claims against Steinhoff stem from a December 2017 accounting scandal which led to a 95 percent collapse in its share price and shed more than R200 billion in market capitalisation, leading…

Siphelele dludla siphelele.dludla@inl.co.za THE WORLD Bank yesterday revised South Africa’s 2021 growth outlook to 3 percent from 2.6 percent earlier, charging that the recovery would be driven by a rebound in global activity from the continued vaccination drive. The bank said in an Africa’s Pulse report that the recovery would also be driven by higher demand for local commodity exports but warned that the country still faced serious impediments to sustained growth. The bank said restrictions imposed to curb a second wave of Covid-19, fiscal tightening, high unemployment, along with power cuts, would prevent a stronger recovery in gross domestic product (GDP). “South Africa’s real GDP is expected to rebound from an estimated 7 percent contraction in 2020 to growth of 3 percent in 2021, slightly up from…

DIGITAL retail bank TymeBank has reached the 3 million customer milestone amid the Covid-19 crisis, and says it will power on to expand future offerings that will include insurance and value-added services. TymeBank, launched in 2019, said its lower fees were a compel- ling proposition for consumers, with onboarding customers of between 100 000 and 120 000 each month and between 3 000 and 5 000 new customers every day. TymeBank has 700 kiosks at retailer Pick n Pay and Boxer stores across South Africa. The digital bank’s majority shareholder is Patrice Motsepe’s African Rainbow Capital. TymeBank chief executive Tauriq Keraan said: “Financial institutions need to be responsive to consumer preferences. Banking customers are sensitive to costs impacting adversely on their financial health, particularly in these…

Cuts, acquisitions start to pay off as Barloworld adapts to the new normal EDWARD WEST edward.west@inl.co.za BARLOWORLD’S share price rose 3.1 percent to R92.43 yesterday morning after it said austerity measures were starting to yield good results and acquisitions were performing better than expected. The international heavy equipment and vehicle group said trading conditions remained affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, but its businesses had adapted to new trading conditions. The focus in the first five months of the 2021 financial year had been to run the business efficiently, integrate the Ingrain and Equipment Mongolia acquisitions and execute on the sale of the Barloworld motor retail operations announced in January. The Equipment Southern Africa business saw resilient mining activity in the five months due to strong commodity prices, while the construction…