Features

DAKAR (Capital Markets in Africa) – Senegalese President Macky Sall took the lead in Sunday’s presidential vote, according to the preliminary results from more than half of the country’s 45 departments. Sall won 61.8 percent of the 2.7 million votes counted in 29 departments that were reported by state-owned Agence de Presse Senegalaise and tallied by Bloomberg. While there are 6.7 million registered voters in the West African nation, officials haven’t released the turnout rate, which historically…

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – The search is on again for the world’s greatest entrepreneurs. These are individuals who have the courage to build something truly remarkable; inspire innovation without limitations; cut through the noise of this transformative age; and fuel growth by being unstoppable. Driven by their desire to better the world around them, they stop at nothing to achieve their greatest ambitions. Marking its 22nd year, the EY World Entrepreneur Award™ (www.EY.com/za/wea)…

HARARE(Capital Markets in Africa) – A decade after Zimbabwe scrapped its own currency to end hyperinflation and began using mainly the U.S. dollar, the economy is back in free fall. Fuel, medicines and other basics are hard to come by and less than 10 percent of the workforce is formally employed. While the new currency regime initially helped stabilize prices, it also increased imports, curtailed exports and gave rise to a chronic shortage of banknotes….

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – Zimbabwean human-rights activists criticized President Emmerson Mnangagwa for ordering the arrest of individuals suspected of helping people injured in protests last month. Mnangagwa told supporters at a ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front rally in southern Zimbabwe on Saturday that law-enforcement agencies will detain doctors, lawyers and human-rights activists who provided the assistance. At least 17 people died and hundreds of others were injured when police and men in military uniforms opened fire…

LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) Theresa May will lead a last-ditch diplomatic drive to persuade European Union leaders to save her Brexit agreement, as she faces a rebellion from Cabinet ministers who want to stop the U.K. leaving without a deal. May’s allies believe she has just nine days left to save her strategy before members of Parliament run out of patience and step in to take over the process in a vote scheduled for Feb….

LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – Seven Labour politicians quit the U.K.’s main opposition party as Brexit cracked open the structures that have defined British politics for decades, just six weeks before the U.K. is due to leave the European Union. At a snap press conference in London, the members of Parliament stood up to explain why they had resigned in protest at Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the party. Just five minutes earlier, they’d pressed the button…

LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – Hedge fund manager Crispin Odey, an advocate of Brexit, renewed his hotly debated wager against the British pound as U.K. lawmakers’ failure to agree on the divorce terms heightened concerns the country may crash out of the European Union without a deal. He soured again on the sterling’s prospects last month, betting that the currency will fall further in the event of a no-deal Brexit, Odey said in an interview Monday. The 180-degree…