Cape Times 2024-06-13

PICK N PAY, which reported a massive loss of R3.2 billion for the year to February, said yesterday that it was seeing R1 million a month in sales from shoppers buying groceries, data, airtime and paying their municipal bills. While this is insignificant in terms of its overall sales, the retailer, South Africa’s second largest, says its innovation in terms of its pay stack allows customers to use a variety of payment methods. In April this year, Pick n Pay joined the likes of Shoprite in offering a store-to-store Domestic Money Transfer service, at R8 a transaction. Four times more customers a month are using Crypto QR codes at nearly 700 Pick n Pays, mostly in the Western Cape followed by…

TELKOM climbed 5.7% to close at R24.99 per share yesterday on news that normalised headline earnings per share (Heps), a core measure of profit- ability would climb by as much as 205% in the year to end-March. The telecoms company also said that basic earnings per share, on a normalised basis would gain by as much as 450%. Telkom, which recently sold its masts and towers business Swiftnet for R6.75 billion, said next-generation revenues grew by approximately 7% and now comprise almost 80% of its total revenue. Reported earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (Ebitda), grew by about 18%, while normalised Ebitda grew in line with its previous guidance of 5%, it said. It explained that growth in earnings was also positively impacted by lower depreciation and write-offs…

THE SPAR GROUP passed the interim dividend and was also unlikely to pay a final dividend in the interests of preserving cash and to reduce debt, CEO Angelo Swartz said yesterday. The share price shot up by 11.78% to close at R110.65 on the JSE yesterday, despite the absent dividend and the 7.6% decline in headline earnings per share to 465 cents that was reported for the six months to March 31. Swartz said consumers were struggling globally, with high inflation and interest rates and low growth and while first half trading was weaker than expected, an improvement was anticipated in the second half. He said in an interview that while the grocery warehousing and distribution group that supplies independent retailers using the Spar brand produced a mixed bag…

SUPERSPORT and DStv owner, Multi- Choice, which is being acquired by global broadcaster Canal+, more than doubled its losses in 2024. This was after its subscriber numbers fell, substantial currency headwinds and an increase in investment spending such as for the launch of Showmax. The headline loss per share slid to 718 cents for the year from the 301c loss at the same time a year before. No dividend was declared in lieu of the Canal+ offer. As of March 31 its total assets stood at R43.85 billion, down from R47.6bn in 2023, while its liabilities are at R43.8bn, less than R47.6bn. CFO Tim Jacobs said such were the currency headwinds that while the group reported some R4.3bn of foreign exchange losses in the period from its listing…

THE COEGA Development Corporation (CDC) has embarked on a range of complementary and innovative business activities to diversify its income streams and become more sustainable and less reliant on support from the fiscus. The CDC operates the special economic zone (SEZ) outside Gqeberha, which is in the 22nd year of an 80-year development phase. It has so far attracted 60 investments. The 11 new investments for the year to March 31 were despite the environment of load shedding, logistics issues, growing geopolitical tensions globally and low economic growth, and it has made Coega the best-performing SEZ in Africa in terms of new investments, said the CDC’s head of marketing, Dr Ayanda Vilakazi. Speaking during a media tour of the facilities this week, he said that with such a long development…

DiSCOVERY Green, the renewable energy subsidiary of Discovery Group, has said the uptake of its product to wheel renewable energy from wind and solar sources on demand to clients was near oversubscribed. This is as new research reveals that businesses can just as easily rack up costs by acquiring too much solar energy as current approaches available to businesses for procuring renewable energy are short-sighted and risky. Head of Discovery Green, Andre Nepgen, yesterday said there had been extremely positive response from the market with the unit, quoting more than three times the quantity of firms it intended to take on at inception. “I obviously can only give you a non-quantitative update and that is there has been a very positive signal from the market. We are ready to start…