Cape Times 2022-02-08

Edward West edward.west@inl.co.za RACIAL and gender diversity continue to be key themes for required change on South African boards, according to an annual research survey on non-executive directors of listed companies that was conducted by professional services firm PwC. Of the South African non-executive directors (including chairpersons), most non-executive directors (50 percent) were white, with black Africans making up 40 percent. Indian/Asians made up 6 percent and coloureds 4 percent. The representation of black Africans and whites as non-executive chairpersons increased to 35 percent from 32 percent, and to 58 percent from 52 percent respectively, while the Indian/Asian and coloured categories decreased to 4 percent from 11 percent in 2020, and to 2 percent from 5 percent in…

Dieketseng Maleke dieketseng.maleke@inl.co.za SHARES in Telkom stumbled yesterday after the mobile operator said that in the quarter ending December 31, 2021, although it had demonstrated a solid performance in the broadband market, legacy businesses continued to drag on its operations. Telkom’s shares dipped by 7 percent to R46.67 yesterday morning, following the release of its trading statement, which said group revenue had declined by 2.3 percent year-on-year to R10.8 billion. The shares closed at R46.75 on the JSE yesterday. The shares fell despite the firm’s active mobile customers growing by 10 percent year-on-year to R16.4 million. Prepaid customers surged by 12 percent year-on-year to R13.8m and mobile broadband continued to support growth. Telkom group CEO Serame Taukobong said: “Our wholesale business, Openserve, continued with…

Edward West edward.west@inl.co.za THE OCEANA Group has suspended its chief financial officer (CFO), Hajra Karrim, “on a precautionary” basis ahead of the anticipated completion of an internal audit investigation by law firm ENSAfrica into how it accounts for its US fishing interests. The fishing group said yesterday that it had started a process to appoint an acting CFO. At the end of January the company said it planned to release the investigation report around February 10. Oceana had warned the market last October that its results would be delayed due to a problem around its ownership of US fish-meal and fish oil processing company Daybrook Fisheries, which Oceana bought for R4.6 billion in 2015. The deal had included a 25 percent interest in US fishing company Wesbank, as…

Siphelele Dludla siphelele.dludla@inl.co.za THE BUSINESS sector yesterday said it was concerned over lapses of national security and lack of consequence management following the July 2021 civil unrest, which cost the economy R50 billion and more than 150 000 jobs. President Cyril Ramaphosa yesterday authorised the release of the report of the expert panel appointed in August to review the government’s response to the July unrest. He will outline the first actions the government will take in response to the findings and recommendations of the report during his State of the Nation Address (Sona) on Thursday. From July 8, 2021, for two weeks South Africa experienced a period of unrest characterised by violence, looting, destruction of property, disruption of economic activity, physi- cal injury and more than 300 deaths.…

THIS TIME LAST year, we wrote about how difficult forecasting was and then proceeded to outline five possible investment trends for 2021. Interestingly, we were confident that the pandemic would be controlled. In hindsight, this proved unduly optimistic, as was our view that global inflation was unlikely to become a significant issue. The chart on the right shows how Covid-19 cases have soared globally, while CPI (consumer price index) inflation has remained elevated across the 20 largest industrial economies. In hindsight, these two wrong calls were related as successive Covid-19 waves and lockdowns skewed demand from services to durable goods, and severely disrupted global supply chains, leading to broad-based and substantial increases in prices. We were on firmer ground in predicting that global growth would come back strongly. In 2021,…

Philippa Larkin philippa.larkin@inl.co.za TRADE union Solidarity said yesterday that a final wage deal might be in reach at Sibanye- Stillwater’s gold mines after the precious metals producer on Friday tabled a revised offer to employees. This comes after seven months of negotiations had deadlocked. Wage talks between unions and Sibanye deadlocked in November after the unions rejected the company’s wage offer. Last month the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation, and Arbitration (CCMA) issued a strike certificate to unions permitting the unions, which include the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union, the National Union of Mineworkers, Solidarity and Uasa, to embark on a strike at Sibanye’s South African gold operations in Gauteng and the Free State, and the company to implement a lockout within 12-months of issuance. Solidarity general secretary Gideon du…