Cape Times 2023-09-14

HARMONY Gold Mining boss Peter Steen- kamp plans to retire at the end of next year as South Africa’s biggest gold producer by volume seeks new growth opportunities mining copper. Steenkamp, who turns 64 in November, has been at the helm of Harmony since returning in 2016. Laste year, the company extended the veteran gold mining executive’s tenure by two years. Steenkamp will leave around December next year and the company has “strong internal candidates to continue what we have built since 2016”, spokesperson Jared Coetzer said yesterday. Steenkamp’s pending exit did not change the strategy to shift to developing copper assets and looking for deals to grow the company, Coetzer added. “There are various internal candidates who would have to go through the nomination process and ultimately it would…

GROWTHPOINT Properties has committed to investing R1.8 billion for the year to June 2024, although this, as well as a 1.3% rise in dividends per share, was not enough to cheer up investors in the company after its share price on the JSE fell 1.2% in yesterday’s session. The R1.8bn committed in investments for 2024 full year follows on the company sinking R1.9bn in “development and capital expenditure” for the year to June 2023, it said yesterday. However, its shares on the JSE closed 1.3% weaker from the previous day’s close at R11.40. In the year to date comparative, Growthpoint’s share price has lost as much as 20% of its value. The international real estate investment company – with properties in South Africa, Australia, Poland, Romania and the UK…

Potential of 27 billion barrels of oil and 60 trillion cubic feet of gas for southern Africa “MASSIVE” offshore oil and gas discoveries in Namibia over the past two years would be important for South Africa, the region and for the continent, and some of the oil reserves also extend into South African waters, Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe said yesterday. Speaking at the Southern Africa Oil & Gas 2023 conference in Cape Town yesterday, he said messages of decarbonisation “become hollow” on a continent where more than 600 million people still had no access to electricity and the priority in these communities was to get access to energy. “It must be appreciated that development and climate change must co-exist,” he said. Estimates were that southern Africa…

THE MARKETS yesterday gave shares in Standard Bank, one of South Africa’s leading financial institutions, the cold shoulder, which saw its share price shave off nearly 5% and R13 billion wiped off its value amid its controversial move to close the accounts of companies affiliated with Sekunjalo Group, an empowerment company. The shares dropped to a low of R181.09 in intraday trade, having closed at R192.55 on Tuesday. Standard Bank’s share price closed 4.63% lower at R183.63 on the JSE yesterday, reducing its market capitalisation by R13.3bn to R322.6bn. The JSE Banking index ended 2.05% lower yesterday at 10 188.43 points, with Standard Bank the biggest loser. Absa shares closed 4.34% lower at R173.08, FirstRand shares were 1.14% down at R71.06, Nedbank fell 1.3% to R207.22. Capitec…

TONGAAT Hulett’s future continues to hang in the balance, following the release of its amended business rescue plan, and has been subsequently delayed, according to its business rescue practitioners (BRPs). Last year, the 130-year-old South African sugar maker was placed in administration after failing to recover from an accounting scandal. Shareholders were referred yesterday to the Stock Exchange News announcement released on June 14, which said the voting on the business rescue plans of Tongaat Hulett and its subsidiaries, Tongaat Hulett Sugar South Africa and Voermol Feeds, which are also in business rescue (together the Companies), had been postponed. “Following meetings of creditors of the companies held on September 8, convened for the purposes of creditors voting on proposed motions regarding the date of publication of the companies’ amended…

JUNIOR miner Copper 360’s share price shot up 14% yesterday after it announced a “significant” mineral resource upgrade at Rietberg mine, north of the town of Springbok in the Northern Cape. Copper 360 was formed in November last year, and listed on the JSE in April this year. The share gained 15.96% and closed at R3.85 on the JSE yesterday. Investors are keen on copper’s prospects as it is viewed as a green metal to build a sustainable world. Jan Nelson, the CEO of Copper 360, South Africa’s only listed copper producer, com- mented: “This resource upgrade shows that the Rietberg mine is a world-class copper mine. “The resource is under- pinned by closely spaced drill holes show- ing ore ready for mining on at least five levels that are…