The Editorial Team |

Barclays Africa Hit by Protesters Demanding Apartheid-Era Money

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – Barclays Africa Group Limited was targeted by protesters who entered one of its branches on Thursday and demanded the bank pay back money from a bailout provided to a company it bought before the end of apartheid. Demonstrators linked to the youth league of South Africa’s ruling African National Congress gathered outside the branch in Durban on South Africa’s east coast, Johannesburg-based Barclays Africa said in an e-mailed response to questions….

Sasol First-Half Profit Drops After Strike, Currency Losses

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JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – Sasol Limited said first-half profit declined as much as 44 percent from a year earlier after the world’s biggest producer of liquid fuels from coal was hurt by currency losses and a three-month strike at its South African operations. Profit before one-time items, known as headline earnings, for the six months through December decreased by between 8.26 rand ($0.62) and 10.68 rand from the 24.28 rand reported a year earlier,…

Lonmin Drops Most in a Year as Output Falls at Biggest Shaft

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JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – Lonmin Plc, the world’s third-largest platinum miner, plunged the most in more than 12 months after stoppages at its biggest shaft caused output to slide. Lonmin dropped as much as 19 percent in London on Thursday, the largest intraday decline since Dec. 18, 2015, and traded at 143.5 pence as of 1:32 p.m. local time. It was the worst performer on the FTSE SmallCap Index. Fiscal first-quarter ore production at…

Guinness Nigeria Posts Biggest Loss in 30 Years on High Cost

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LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) Guinness Nigeria Plc, the country’s second-biggest brewer, posted its biggest loss in at least 30 years as production and financing costs rose in Africa’s most populous nation. The local unit of London-based Diageo Plc posted a loss of 4.67 billion naira ($14.8 million) for the six months through December compared with a profit of 1.17 billion naira ($4.71 million) a year earlier. Cost of sales rose by more than 50 percent while financing costs…

Economic Recovery in Nigeria Hobbled by Oil, Currency Policy

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LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) Nigeria’s economy may struggle to rebound from its worst slump in 25 years unless President Muhammadu Buhari can end an armed conflict in the nation’s oil-producing region and fix a currency policy that’s blocked investment. Pipeline attacks in the Niger River delta cut oil production by a third last year, slashing government revenue, while central bank intervention and trading restrictions that prop up the value of the naira have stymied trade and…

Uganda negotiating $2.3 bln loan with China to fund rail line

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KAMPALA (Capital Markets in Africa) – Uganda is negotiating a $2.3 billion loan with China’s Exim Bank to fund an initial 273 km stretch of rail line the east African country is planning to build for faster and cheaper transportation, an official said on Thursday. Landlocked Uganda eventually wants to construct a 1,700 km standard gauge railway network to connect with similar lines being built in neighbouring Kenya. The rail links are expected to help…

Goldman’s Contrarian View on South Africa’s Rand

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JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – There’s still some momentum left in South African rand’s rally, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. The 148-year-old Wall Street lender predicts the currency will extend its 17 percent gain since the beginning of 2016 to end the year at 13 per dollar, a level last seen in 2015. That’s a view shared by only three out of 26 analysts in a Bloomberg survey: the median forecast is for the currency…

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