Cape Times 2021-08-10

Standard and Absa anticipating sharp earning gains in six months to June 30 EDWARD WEST edward.west@inl.co.za TRADING updates by two leading banks indicate that earnings of South Africa’s major banks are on track to rebound sharply in the six-month period to June 30, in line with their share prices. The banks have benefited from a better-than-expected local economic rebound in the first six months, lower than expected growth in impairments, and the fact that this year’s half-year results will be compared with a period of very low banking activity last year, due to Covid-19-related lockdowns. On Friday, the Standard Bank Group said its headline earnings per share (heps) were expected to increase 45 to 55 percent in the six months to June 30, after results in the past two months…

Absa, African Rainbow launch platform to help keep lights on Banele Ginindza banele.ginindza@inl.co.za ABSA BANK AND African Rainbow Energy and Power (Arep) have partnered to launch African Rainbow Energy (ARE), a renewable energy investment platform with R6.5 billion of gross assets in hand, to expand the pool of funding available in the country as South Africa battles with a constrained energy supply from power utility Eskom. With a R500 million cash injection from Absa, which will also transfer R5bn of existing renewable assets to the company, ARE would provide investors with exposure to utility scale, commercial and industrial sector clean-energy investments, building a platform of scale in South Africa, and will seek selected, bankable projects in Africa, it said on Friday. The transaction represents about 25 percent…

Siphelele Dludla siphelele.dludla@inl.co.za BUSINESS and economists are keeping a close eye on newly appointed Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana and his approach to policy, but have pledged to support him in the wake of Tito Mboweni’s surprise resignation and as President Cyril Ramaphosa announced a Cabinet reshuffle. Ramaphosa on Thursday appointed Godo- ngwana, the Development Bank of Southern Africa’s chairperson, as finance minister in a Cabinet reshuffle. Investors were expecting the initial market reaction to Mboweni’s resignation and Godo- ngwana’s appointment to be slightly negative, owing to Mboweni’s austerity posture. Anchor Capital’s investment analyst, Casey Delport, said the appointment of anyone else other than Mboweni was going to be a more fiscally negative move given his hard line on reining in expenditure. Delport, however, said Godongwana gave voice to more centrist…

In March this year the Global Gender Gap Report 2021 was released. It is a rich source of information, covering 156 countries, and it evaluates the gender gap in politics, the economy, health and education. It is important because it covers a year of the Covid-19 pandemic and associated public health measures across the world, and it is also important for its basic, bleak conclusion: this long year has affected women more harshly than men, and has reversed some of the hard-won gains that have been made towards gender equality. Globally, the areas of political and economic participation, in particular, have seen some reversals of gender parity. South Africa has slipped from 17th to 18th out of 156 countries over this year. Like many other countries, we are close…

Dineo Faku dineo.faku@inl.co.za GOLD BULLION producer AngloGold Ashanti’s shares plummeted 12 percent on the JSE on Friday after reducing its production guidance, and hiking its cost estimates for 2021 amid safety concerns at its Obuasi mine, in Ghana. Johannesburg headquartered AngloGold fell 12.04 percent to R247.18 a share at the close on Friday after lowering its annual guidance for 2021 to between 2.45 million and 2.60 million ounces of production at a total cash cost of up to $950 (R13 903) an ounce. In its financial and production report for the half-year ended June 2021, released on Friday, the group raised its all-sustaining costs (AISC) to up to $1 340 an ounce and capital expenditure of between $1.03 billion to $1.19bn. “Production has been revised…

SIPHELELE DLUDLA WAS HE PUSHED or was he not? That is the question on many people’s minds following the shock resignation of Tito Mboweni as finance minister last week, hours before Presi- dent Cyril Ramaphosa’s Cabinet reshuffle. Political commentators believe Mboweni was pushed out following pressure by the once-powerful labour federation Cosatu and its political ally, the SACP. Economists, however, say his political capital was all spent and he had nothing more to offer to save the country from a fiscal cliff. Intellidex’s Peter Attard Montalto said on Friday that they believed Mboweni had been forced out by the SACP and Cosatu with Ramaphosa’s nod and did not in fact resign. Attard Montalto said Cosatu and the SACP used the opportunity for a reshuffle to extract key scalps in…