Cape Times 2022-04-25

OLD MUTUAL chairperson Trevor Manuel received a 9.7 percent increase in his annual fees in the financial year to April 1, 2021, much higher than inflation but also, a year during which the group, which has more than R1.3 trillion under management, managed to perform strongly against the Covid-19 impacted 2020 financial year. The group also released a substantial 58 page remuneration report with its annual report on Friday – the group has in the past come under fire from its shareholders at annual meetings regarding its remuneration policies. The reported showed that executive’s remuneration, including the short- and long-term incentives, increased by around 20 percent for some directors and prescribed officers and declined marginally for three out of ten of them. Old Mutual Investments managing…

ANHEUSER-BUSCH InBev has introduced Chernigivske, Ukraine’s most popular beer brand, to countries such as the UK, Germany, Belgium, France, Netherlands, Denmark, Austria, Po- land, Italy, Colombia and Brazil, as part of its humanitarian relief efforts to Ukraine. Additional markets are planned and all profits from the sale of the beer will go to support humanitarian relief efforts, with AB InBev guaranteeing at least $5 million (R77.8m) of support from this initiative, the global brewer said on Friday. The move comes as Russia’s war on Ukraine continues and as a growing number of companies have stopping sales of products and services in Russia as well as discontinuing operations, all of which impact a firm’s financials. The world’s largest brewer, which makes Budweiser, Corona and Stella Artois, said its employees,…

RECURRING power outages plaguing South Africa, India and other emerging market economies have been described as a threat that could significantly hamper global economic growth. This comes as South Africa’s power utility Eskom warns of a worst-case scenario that could see the country experiencing more than 100 days of power cuts during the winter season if the national grid faces additional pressure. Eskom last week ramped up its rotational power cuts to Stage 4 as the grid suffered numerous unplanned breakdowns at a number of power stations, but by the weekend the grid had stabilised, with the lights back on. Citadel global director Bianca Botes on Friday said the challenges of Eskom had been apparent for a number of years, with little light at the end of the tunnel…

SIBANYE-STILLWATER, battling to contain a fallout with employees after making a revised offer to striking gold miners, is anticipating a difficult “socio-political” environment in South Africa as it focuses on “managing relationships with labour and labour unions” this year. Sibanye has been rocked by a nearly two-month strike by mineworkers at its South African gold operations. On Friday, Sibanye offered its gold miners a revised and final settlement offer reflecting an R850 a month annual increase for the period 2022 to 2024. In its annual report for 2021, which was released Friday, Sibanye said its “philosophy on wage increases is therefore to retain salary cost escalation at levels close to inflation” through “collective wage agreement” with the unions. Two labour unions, Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) and National…

THE CITRUS Growers’ Association of Southern Africa (CGA) on Friday welcomed the progress made to return Durban port to full functionality ahead of the 2022 citrus export season after catastrophic KwaZulu-Natal floods. Justin Chadwick, the chief executive of CGA, said that it had been engaging closely with the government and stakeholders across the citrus value chain on efforts to return the Durban port back to full functionality, following the catastrophic rains and flooding in KwaZulu-Natal. “We are pleased that there has been significant progress achieved over the past week with the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE), Transnet and eThekwini Municipality working speedily to repair the extensive damage caused by the flooding,” Chadwick said. Government entities had managed to reopen Bayhead Road, which is the main feeder road to the container…

THE FACE-OFF between gold miner Sibanye-Stillwater and its workers goes down to the wire tomorrow as workers reject the company’s latest offer on the table made on Friday which entails an R850 wage increase with a R50 living out allowance over a three-year period. Organised labour, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the Association of Mineworkers and Construction (Amcu) said over the weekend the offer had been rejected by workers and would be put to the litmus test today at a joint mass meeting at the Beatrix Mine in Welkom, prior to an anticipated meeting with the company tomorrow. “They have taken R50 from the housing allowance, and workers have rejected that with the contempt it deserves,” Amcu secretary-general Jeff Mphahlele said. This was echoed by NUM secretary-general William…