Star 2022-11-22

BARLOWORLD, after trying to sell its car rental and fleet lease operations since 2019, said yesterday it would now unbundle subsidiary Zeda, the owner of Avis and Budget operations in the region, and separately list it. Zeda trades in 10 other sub-Saharan African countries. It will be the second time the local Avis operations are listed – in April 1997 Servgro unbundled and Avis Southern Africa was listed on the JSE, but it was bought by Barloworld in 2005 and delisted. Barloworld said the unbundling would be by way of listing 189 million Zeda ordinary shares, or 100% of Zeda’s share capital, on December 13. There would be a distribution in specie of listed Zeda distribution shares to Barloworld shareholders, on a one-Zeda share for one-Barloworld share held, basis.…

Load shedding having a negative impact on the country’s economy SOUTH Africa’s intensive consumers of electricity have expressed growing concern over the potential impact of heightened power cuts on production and economic growth as they are on the last push before the end of the year. Eskom is implementing stage 4 load shedding after withdrawing stage 5 yesterday due to the high levels of breakdowns and depleted emergency generation reserves. The struggling power utility has revealed that all its open-cycle gas turbines (OCGT) have ceased operation due to the inability to buy more diesel after exhausting at least R12 billion on diesel, more than double its annual budget for the fuel. The Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of Southern Africa (Seifsa) said yesterday that the energy-intensive users were…

SOUTH African Poultry producers (Sapa) will have to continue to “take one for the team” at least for the next 18 months as the International Trade Administration Commission (Itac) takes on a sunset review of US anti-dumping tariffs, which expire tomorrow. Itac earlier this month begun a sunset review of the US’s tariffs on concerns by the Sapa and poultry producers in the SA Customs Union area. Itac decided the application had “sufficient evidence and a prima facie case” to justify an investigation on concerns that the expiry of the tariff period without a new one in place could lead to percentage-based, or ad valorem, anti-dumping duties such as apply to other countries. “This was a last-minute condition imposed by the US for its agreement to an extension of…

SOUTH African stocks and currency markets began the week by following their global counterparts as the market sentiment was dented by worries about a rise in Covid-19 cases in China and tightening restrictions amid the expected domestic interest rates hike. The JSE All Share Index fell 0.9% yesterday to 71 938 points while the rand moderated to R17.33, 9c lower, against the US dollar after weakening to R17.46 during early trade. China yesterday reported its first deaths of Covid-19 patients in nearly six months as the country struggles to contain a surge in cases across multiple cities. The country’s National Health Commission reported two deaths of Covid-19 patients in Beijing for Sunday, following the death of an 87-year-old man in the capital on Saturday. As a result of China’s…

BRAIT, the owner of Virgin Active, New Look in the UK and soon to be listed Premier, says it will cede its management agreement with Ethos Private Equity to The Rohatyn Group (TRG), but incentives for Ethos team members working on Brait’s strategy will remain the same. This was to “ensure alignment with investors on Brait’s strategy to unlock value to shareholders by unbundling by December 2024”, Brait said yesterday in a statement. Premier’s listing next month leaves questions about how Brait plans to unlock value to shareholders of New Look and Virgin Active – and even a possible listing of Virgin Active has not been ruled out. The changed management agreement followed an announcement yesterday that TRG, a specialised global asset management firm focused on emerging markets and real…

PPC, A LEADING provider of building materials and solutions in sub-Saharan Africa, has robust financial metrics and the right focus to weather the current weak economic cycle, chief executive Roland van Wijnen said yesterday. Speaking on the release of results for the six months to September 30, he said their balance sheet and cash generation was strong and the group might consider rewarding shareholders with a dividend or share buybacks, advising “lets see how the second half goes”. He said in a telephone interview that Cimerwa’s outlook in Rwanda remained favourable, which should – with PPC Zimbabwe’s expected recovery in sales volumes – contri- bute positively to the second half-year performance. Some of the infrastructure being undertaken in Zimbabwe that was helping to stoke cement demand included a large road…