The Editorial Team |

A $1 Trillion Glut of Bonds Is Dwarfing Central-Bank Demand

NEW YORK(Capital Markets in Africa) — The world’s major central banks aren’t purchasing debt fast enough, leaving almost $1 trillion of new sovereign bonds looking for buyers in the months ahead. The flood of fresh debt, sold by governments to fund pandemic-rescue packages, threatens to dwarf central-bank buying and swamp markets in the U.K., Canada and Australia, according to Bloomberg calculations. Policy-maker purchases will also lag issuance in the U.S. and Japan, where a continuing…

Top Mauritian Stock Targets Fresh Insurance Deals in East Africa

Posted on by The Editorial Team

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) — Mauritian insurer MUA Ltd. is looking for more deals in East Africa after an acquisition in Kenya helped to boost its market share in the region’s biggest economy. MUA earlier this month spent $12.3 million buying Saham Kenya, lifting its share of the country’s insurance market to 2.5% from 0.5%, Chief Executive Officer Bertrand Casteres said in an email. The company, which also has operations in Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania, last year set…

Nigerian Central Bank Holds Key Rate as Inflation Ticks Up

Posted on by The Editorial Team

LAGOS (Capital Markers in Africa) — The Central Bank of Nigeria held interest rates as it remains concerned about a persistent increase in inflation. Of the 10 members of the monetary policy committee who attended its meeting, eight voted to keep the rate unchanged at 12.5%, Governor Godwin Emefiele said at a briefing in the capital, Abuja, on Monday. That matched the median estimate of seven economists in a Bloomberg survey. Key Insights The unchanged stance could…

South Africa Services Sentiment Drop Shows More Second-Quarter Pain

Posted on by The Editorial Team

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) — Sentiment in South Africa’s services sector fell to a record low in the second quarter, providing further evidence that the economy probably suffered a historic decline in that period. A quarterly index measuring confidence in the sector fell to 7 from 17 in the three months through March, the Bureau for Economic Research said in an emailed statement Tuesday. That’s the lowest reading in the 15-year history of the…

Another Lost Deal Shows Naspers Growth Machine Is Stumbling

Posted on by The Editorial Team

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) — The big deals that Prosus NV should be winning is slipping through its fingers. Late last year, Takeaway.com NV trumped Prosus’s bid for Just Eat Plc. Now EBay Inc.’s classifieds business is being scooped up by Prosus’s smaller Norwegian rival, Adevinta ASA, for $9.2 billion. It’s not a great start for a company set up to be a deal machine. Prosus was spun off from South African tech company Naspers Ltd. in September with a…

Nigeria Wants Banks to Alter 65% of Loans Amid Economic Fallout

Posted on by The Editorial Team

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) — Nigeria’s central bank wants the nation’s lenders to restructure almost two-thirds of all loans to help borrowers cope with lower oil prices and economic fallout from the coronavirus. Loans worth 7.8 trillion naira ($20 billion) to 35,640 customers are already being reorganized out of 18.9 trillion naira in credit across the industry, Central Bank of Nigeria Governor Godwin Emefiele said on Monday. The central bank would be “more comfortable” if 65% of loans…

Harvard Undercuts Own Logic in Foreign-Student Fight, U.S. Says

Posted on by The Editorial Team

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) — Harvard University can’t argue that foreign students taking online-only classes in the U.S. will get a lesser education if they continue those studies from abroad because Americans on its campus this fall will basically be learning the same way, the government said. The Trump administration on Monday fired back at a lawsuit filed last week by Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The two sued over a new ban…

« 1 … 156 157 158 159 160 … 1,077 »