Cape Times 2021-11-23

Siphelele Dludla siphelele.dludla@inl.co.za SOUTH Africa remained the destination for the most foreign direct investment (FDI) projects in 2020 in spite of the sharp fall in FDI in the continent due to the impact of the Covid-19. The EY Africa Attractiveness Report released yesterday showed that South Africa received the most projects in the continent in 2020, followed by Morocco and Nigeria. On a country basis, South Africa had the highest FDI score of 31.1 points, followed by Morocco at 17.7 points and Nigeria at 17.5 points. Though South Africa attracted more projects, Nigeria received the highest capital investment, with FDI valued at $6.6 billion (R103.7 bn) in 2020. The EY report showed that FDI in South Africa remained buoyant owing to the country’s diversified economy,…

Sizwe Dlamini sizwe.dlamini@inl.co.za EOH HOLDINGS chief executive Stephen van Coller caused harm to many small black businesses working with EOH by treating all enterprise development partners as “suspected” criminals. This is according to Save EOH – a group that aims to expose the unethical business conduct within the company – who made claims that Van Coller lied under oath to the Zondo Commission on no less than 54 occasions during his testimony. The Save EOH submission to the Zondo Commission noted at least 54 factual inaccuracies relating to various aspects of the company, which it said formed the basis for formal criminal charges to be registered with the SAPS. The submission has also been delivered to shareholders and members of the board of EOH. When contacted for comment, EOH group…

Dineo Faku dineo.faku@inl.co.za JSE HEAVYWEIGHTS Naspers/Prosus yesterday reported strong e-commerce revenues during the half year ended September 2021, despite widening trading losses. Prosus said e-commerce revenue growth jumped 53 percent to $4.2 billion (R66bn), while parent company Naspers said e-commerce revenues was up 52 percent to $4.6bn, outpacing revenue growth at Tencent, the Chinese internet gaming and social media group, in which Prosus owns a minority stake. Growth in e-commerce was driven by Classifieds, Food Delivery, Edtech, Payments and fintech. However, its operating loss increased from $274 million to $315m as a result of investments to expand e-commerce units. The value of the e-commerce portfolio had been on a steady growth path and excluding Tencent and VK/mail.ru is now approaching $50bn, up from $13bn five years…

Siphelele Dludla siphelele.dludla@inl.co.za GLOBAL factors continued to put the rand on the back foot yesterday as the local currency began the week under serious pressure, slumping to a one-year low. The rand yesterday breached the R15.80 mark against the US dollar, its lowest since November last year, pressured by a stronger dollar and concerns over new lockdown restrictions in Europe, as well as some hawkish comments from Fed officials. Investors are growing increasingly worried about the spread of Covid-19 in Europe as the onset of cold weather sees the continent battling a fresh wave of infections. Several nations are reporting record-high infection rates and have begun introducing full and partial lockdowns, with Austria becoming the first EU country to go back into a national lockdown as of yesterday. Anchor Capital’s…

Edward West edward.west@inl.co.za BARLOWORLD moved well into the black in the year to September 30 with headline earnings per share (Heps) at 1 195 cents compared with the 268c loss in 2020, and it also declared a special dividend. Normalised Heps from continuing operations came to 1 323c versus 70c in 2020. A dividend of 300c was declared compared with no dividend at the end of the 2020 year, and this brought the total payout in 2021 to 437c per share. On top of that, a special dividend of 1 150c will be paid. Shareholders were enthused, as the share price went up 9.76 percent to R148.18 per share by yesterday afternoon. Group revenue increased 8.4 percent to R53.8 billion, with revenue from…

Given Majola given.majola@inl.co.za SCHOOL uniform customers could find reprieve as the Competition Tribunal has confirmed, as an order, a consent agreement whereby a school uniform supplier/retailer agreed to no longer enter into exclusive supply agreements with schools and school groups, and to change existing supply agreements to this end. The tribunal said in a statement issued yesterday that the consent agreement between McCullagh and Bothwell (Hyde Park); McCullagh and Bothwell; and DRRW Invest- ments (collectively, “McCullagh and Bothwell”) and the Competition Commission formed part of greater efforts to increase competition, reduce barriers to entry and ensure cheaper prices in the school uniforms market. In accordance with the consent agreement, McCullagh and Bothwell would have to, among other things, ensure that any new supply agreements with schools did not contain a…