The Editorial Team |

Traders Lured by High-Yield `Sweet Spot’ in Emerging Markets

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Traders are gaining confidence in nations that pay the steepest local interest rates. Investor anxiety, as measured by one-month implied currency volatility, dropped to multi-month lows last month in Russia, South Africa and Brazil — countries with some of the most generous yields on their local government debt. Those nations are benefiting from demand for their bonds as interest rates in the developed world stay suppressed amid a pickup…

Largest Africa Economies Need More Growth to Cut Joblessness

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LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – A surge in agriculture has helped lift Africa’s biggest economies out of their slumps, but the recovery may be weak. Gross domestic product in Nigeria, the continent’s largest crude producer, advanced for the first time in six quarters in the three months ended June from a year earlier, growing 0.55 percent, the statistics agency said. In South Africa, GDP expanded 2.5 percent from the previous quarter, ending the second recession in almost…

Nigeria’s Economy Expands to End the Worst Slump in 25 Years

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LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Nigeria’s economy expanded in the second quarter, ending its worst slump in 25 years as agricultural and oil output increased. Gross domestic product of Africa’s largest crude producer grew 0.55 percent in the three months through June from a year earlier compared with a revised 0.9 percent contraction in the first quarter, the Abuja-based National Bureau of Statistics said in an emailed report Tuesday. The median of 10 economists’…

South Africa Exits Recession in Second Quarter as GDP Rises 2.5%

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JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – South Africa’s economy exited its second recession in almost a decade in the three months ended June 30 after agricultural output surged. Gross domestic product increased an annualized 2.5 percent in the second quarter compared with a revised decline of 0.6 percent in the previous three months, the statistics office said in a report released on Tuesday in the capital, Pretoria. The median of 21 estimates compiled by Bloomberg was for growth…

Bell Pottinger Booted From PR Body Over South Africa Conduct

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JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – Bell Pottinger LLP, the public-relations firm started by an adviser to Margaret Thatcher, has been thrown out of the U.K. industry body in an unprecedented ruling after an investigation found its work on behalf of the Gupta family in South Africa had stoked racial tensions. Bell Pottinger ran a potentially divisive social-media campaign aimed at highlighting economic inequality in South Africa along racial grounds and targeted wealthy white individuals…

Fairfax Is Said to Back AfriSam to Clinch African Cement Deal

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JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. is prepared to inject as much as 5 billion rand ($386 million) to pay off bank debt owed by AfriSam Group Pty Ltd. and help South Africa’s second-biggest cement producer clinch a tie-up with larger rival PPC Ltd., according to two people familiar with the matter. The money from the African unit of the Canadian insurer will be used to repay bank loans and allow AfriSam to…

Worst May Be Over as Biggest Africa Economies End Growth Rut

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LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – The worst may be over for Africa’s two largest economies as they likely emerged from a slump in the second quarter. Official data on Tuesday will probably show South Africa’s economy expanded in the three months through June, ending its second recession in less than a decade. Nigeria’s gross domestic product probably grew from a year earlier, and came out of its worst slump in a quarter of a century. South Africa…

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