Pretoria News 2022-05-27

WASSA, a subsidiary of the black- and women-owned Wasaa Group, yesterday acquired the East London Terminal, BP Southern Africa’s (BPSA) liquid bulk fuels import terminal, in a key milestone in South Africa’s energy sector’s transformation journey. The financial details of the deals were not disclosed. Wasaa said the deal would signifi- cantly entrench its position as an emerging commodity trader in the region and underscored BPSA’s long-standing commitment to energy sector transformation. In terms of the deal with BPSA, Wasaa Terminals took over full operational responsibility of the terminal effective December 6 last year. In line with the agreement, Wasaa Terminals has also acquired 100 percent of the terminal’s movable assets and a 20 percent stake in the berth-to-terminal pipeline. Speaking from the East London terminal handover ceremony yesterday,…

THE SOUTH African economy is losing between R350 billion and R840bn a year in untapped trade opportunities with the European Union (EU), especially in agricultural exports, in spite of having Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) that have been in place for six years. These were the findings of a EU-funded study released yesterday, by Trade Research Advisory, an international trade and economic development research advisory firm. Trade Advisory managing director Martin Cameron yesterday said the EU remained South Africa’s biggest trade and investment partner in Africa, representing more than 40 percent of foreign direct investment and around 350 000 direct jobs. South Africa’s primary exports to the EU are fuels and mining products, machinery and transport equipment, and other semi-manufactured goods, fetching the country R355bn as at the…

AFRICAN Bank, which said earlier this year it wished to enter business banking, will acquire 100 percent of Grindrod Bank in a R1.5 billion deal that will accelerate its entry into a sector where the bank wants to be able to fund entrepreneurs. African Bank chief executive Kennedy Bungane said yesterday the acquisition would help them realise their business banking aspirations, and would entail the bank acquiring valuable sectoral expertise and an existing customer base. Grindrod’s share price leapt 8.35 percent on the JSE yesterday afternoon. “We announced earlier this year … the formation our business banking division as part of a strategy to diversify and develop a fully-fledged middle of the pyramid business banking offering. “This acquisition allows us to do that efficiently and rapidly and…

CONSTRUCTION group Stefanutti Stocks said yesterday that it would continue to focus on its restructuring, seek to achieve favourable outcomes on the Kusile Power Project contract processes and return the group to profitability. This was according to chief executive Russel Crawford, who commented on the group’s results for the year to February 28. Contract revenue from continuing operations increased to R6 billion from R4.7bn, while the operating loss widened to R99 million from R55m in 2021. A normalised operating profit of R198m excluded abnormal and non-operational items such as restructuring costs, legal fees, fair value adjustments and impairments of assets and a provision relating to the City of Cape Town claim settlement. The earnings and headline loss per share came to 248.27 cents (171.62c) and a loss…

SPEAR Real Estate Investment Trust (Reit) delivered a stand-out performance among locally listed real estate investment trusts after lifting its annual distribution by 16 percent per share for the 2002 financial year. Reits have so far this year mainly reported mid to low single-digit growth in distributions to shareholders due to the tough environment, in particular the oversupply of office space, structural changes in retail shopping, both of which were exacerbated through the Covid-19 pandemic and low economic growth. Spear chief executive Quintin Rossi said that their success was due to their strategy of holding a diversified portfolio in the Western Cape. He said semigration trends, good governance and good infrastructure in the province, and the fact that the region did not have a large overhang of existing property such…

The seasons are changing and with winter on its way, it’s the start of the ‘flu season’. We chat to Dr Morgan Mkhatshwa, head of operations at Bonitas Medical Fund, on why a flu vaccine is recommended, not just by the scheme, but also the World Health Organization (WHO). Why should I get a flu vaccine? Although the flu vaccine will not eliminate your risk of developing flu, it helps reduce your chances of severe infection. Annually, seasonal flu kills around 11 500 people in South Africa, which is why it is a good precautionary measure to take. How are Covid-19 and flu viruses similar? WHO says that Covid-19 and influenza viruses are similar in disease presentation. First, they both cause respiratory disease, which presents a wide range of illness…