The Editorial Team |

MTN Casts Eye Over Empire as Carrier Mulls Over Where to Chop

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – Africa’s biggest mobile-phone company is doing a spring clean of its empire. MTN Group Ltd. said Thursday it’s conducting a review to decide whether it really needs to be in all 22 of its markets across Africa and the Middle East. Some of them are tiny, others are war-torn while still more have regulators desperate to curb the Johannesburg-based company’s perceived dominance. Here are a few countries where MTN is…

Exxon Punished for Departing From Big Oil’s Austerity Hymnal

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LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Exxon Mobil Corp. is ramping up capital spending even as the rest of Big Oil preaches prudence. Investors punished the outlier. The world’s biggest publicly-traded oil company by market value unveiled an aggressive revamp of its upstream portfolio on Wednesday, lifting cash outlays by at least 25 percent to more than $30 billion a year in the early 2020s. That’s in stark contrast to rivals such as Chevron Corp. which…

Aspen CEO Sees China Overtaking South Africa as Biggest Market

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JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – Aspen Pharmacare Holdings Ltd. sees China eventually overtaking South Africa as its biggest market as the company completes its transition to a global therapeutics business from an Africa-focused generic-drugs maker. The business sells medicines in more than 150 countries and is looking for partners as it expands in China, the Middle East and the U.S. The infant-milk formula market is just one area that represents a good opportunity in Asia’s…

Tunisia Can’t Defend the Dinar, Central Bank Governor Says

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TUNIS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Tunisia can’t defend its currency “even if it wanted to,” and must instead focus on narrowing its trade deficit to revive the economy, according to central bank Governor Marouane El Abassi. El Abassi, in his first news conference since being appointed last month, said the central bank raised its benchmark interest rate by 75 basis points this week to curb inflation, which he said risked becoming “uncontrollable.” The dinar has weakened…

Trump’s Derogatory Comment Dogs Tillerson’s First Day in Africa

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LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – It didn’t take long for President Donald Trump’s derogatory comment about African nations to come up in Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s first visit to the continent as top U.S. diplomat. At a press conference with African Union Commission Chairman Moussa Faki in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, a journalist asked Faki and Tillerson whether the U.S. should apologize for the remark. The reporter said the comment, which Trump has denied,…

SAP Paid $11 Million to Gupta-Linked Companies for Contracts

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JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – SAP SE said it paid 128.6 million rand ($11 million) to companies linked to South Africa’s Gupta family, which is headed by three brothers accused of using their friendship with former President Jacob Zuma to defraud state-owned entities. The findings represent the first time that an international company has given details on specific payments made to Gupta entities. Other global businesses to become embroiled in the corruption allegations include U.S. consultancy McKinsey…

Egypt Inflation Enters Post-Float Target Range for First Time

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TUNIS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Inflation in urban parts of Egypt slowed to a 17-month low, for the first time entering a broad target range the central bank set after floating the currency in November 2016. The annual rate eased to 14.4 percent in February, from 17.1 percent a month earlier, the state-run statistics agency said. As prices soared following the decision to lift currency controls, the central bank had announced a target of…

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