The Editorial Team

New Coal Power Stations Are Cut Off From Funding by FirstRand

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – FirstRand Ltd., Africa’s biggest bank by market value, is ending its funding of new coal-fired power stations immediately and will halt the financing of new projects to mine the fuel over the next five years.The Johannesburg-based lender joins its peer Nedbank Group Ltd. in making such commitments as pressure mounts on banks to shun fossil-fuel lending from investors and activists. While South Africa’s largest banks are reducing their exposure to activities…

Covid Variants Risk Rises in S. Africa With Biggest HIV Epidemic

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JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa): The world’s biggest number of HIV cases is complicating South Africa’s efforts to fight the coronavirus pandemic, raising the risk of more mutated versions emerging and spreading across the globe.Many of the country’s 8.2 million HIV-infected people are immuno-compromised and scientists say they can harbor the coronavirus for longer, allowing it to mutate as it reproduces. A study of an HIV positive 36-year-old woman showed that Covid-19 stayed in her…

African Central Banks Seen Holding Rates on GDP Growth Concerns

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LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Central bankers in eight key African countries are likely to leave borrowing costs unchanged this month to support the recovery of economies that remain vulnerable to coronavirus-induced shocks. Parts of the continent are wrestling with a third wave of infections driven by the highly transmissible delta variant. Africa is the world’s least-vaccinated region with only 3.2% of 1.2 billion people fully immunized, leaving it vulnerable to new waves and stricter lockdown…

Debt May Complicate Reform of Nigerian State Oil Firm, FSDH Says

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LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) -The Nigerian state-owned energy company’s debt burden will become “a political hot potato” when the firm is overhauled under new legislation, FSDH Capital Ltd said. The Nigerian National Petroleum Corp.’s current liabilities exceed its assets by 4.56 trillion naira ($11.1 billion), according to its 2020 financial statements. President Muhammadu Buhari last month signed a law that aims to transform the energy industry in Africa’s biggest oil producer, including replacing the NNPC with…

South Africa’s Green Energy Push Hinges on $28 Billion Debt Fix

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JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africsa) – The head of South Africa’s state power utility needs to substantially reduce its 402 billion rand ($28 billion) of debt to realize his vision of transforming the coal-addicted behemoth into a leading green-energy producer and create as many as 300,000 jobs in the process. Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. supplies more than 90% of the nation’s electricity, the bulk of it from coal, and emits more than two-fifths of the nation’s…

A Crack Opens in the Foundation of the App Store Economy

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LAGOS (Capital Martkets in Africa) – When Apple Inc. introduced its App Store in 2008, the company’s founder and chief executive Steve Jobshad a message for iPhone app developers. “We are not trying to be business partners,” he told the New York Times. Jobs meant that developers didn’t have to feel threatened because Apple’s main business was selling phones, not taking 30% commissions on app sales. But the comment could be interpreted very differently today,…

Barclays to Deutsche Bank Dubbed Climate-Change Hypocrites

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LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – Barclays Plc and Deutsche Bank AG are among 17 banks accused by climate law activists of “hypocrisy” over work related to a controversial North Sea oil field. ClientEarth, a London-based group of lawyers that brings environmental cases, wrote to the lenders asking them to justify financial or advisory services that they provide to Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Siccar Point Energy, the two firms behind the Cambo oil field project, according to…

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