Investment | ShowMax Expands to 36 African Countries in Challenge to Netflix

Investment | ShowMax Expands to 36 African Countries in Challenge to Netflix

Johannesburg, South Africa, Capital Markets in Africa: Naspers Limited, Africa’s biggest company by market value, expanded its video-streaming service ShowMax into 36 new sub-Saharan African countries in a challenge to Netflix Inc., which is also growing in the region. The new markets went online Friday, bringing ShowMax’s availability globally to 65 countries, the company said in an e-mail. The service started in August. Naspers, which has a market value of $57 billion and is Africa’s largest…

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Investment | DuPont Plans to Double Its African Seed Business in Five Years

Investment | DuPont Plans to Double Its African Seed Business in Five Years

LAGOS, Nigeria, Capital Markets in Africa: DuPont Company plans to more than double its African seed business, excluding the mature South African market, over five years as governments and farmers on the least-developed continent seek to boost crop yields, a director of the company’s Pioneer unit said. “From a revenue perspective we’re aiming for over 20 percent in terms of the compound annual growth rate,” Prabdeep Bajwa, the African regional business director for Pioneer, said in…

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Congo Government Will Investigate, Tax Freeport Copper-Mine Sale

Congo Government Will Investigate, Tax Freeport Copper-Mine Sale

Kinshasa, DR. Congo, Capital Markets in Africa: The Democratic Republic of Congo’s government plans to investigate Freeport-McMoRan Inc.’s sale of a copper mine in the central African country for $2.65 billion and tax the transaction, Mines Minister Martin Kabwelulu said. Freeport, based in Phoenix, Arizona, announced May 9 it sold its indirect 56 percent stake in the Tenke Fugurume mine, which also produces cobalt, to China Molybdenum Company Gecamines, the state-owned Congolese miner, said May 10 it wasn’t informed…

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World | Negative Rates Risk Weakness for Lenders, Says World Bank’s Oteh

World | Negative Rates Risk Weakness for Lenders, Says World Bank’s Oteh

LAGOS, Nigeria, Capital Markets in Africa: Nations that have adopted a negative interest rate policy to spur economic growth face the possibility of weakening their banks, according to Arunma Oteh, vice president and treasurer of the World Bank. “We still have a global economy that is very fragile,” Oteh said in an interview in Tokyo Wednesday. “What you find where you have had the expansionary monetary policy that has been useful, what you’ve also found is…

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Investment | Africa Investors Look East as Commodity-Driven Boom Withers

Investment | Africa Investors Look East as Commodity-Driven Boom Withers

LAGOS, Nigeria. Capital Markets in Africa: Investors targeting Africa are looking east, as depressed commodity prices and slowing growth in China put the brakes on a two-decade growth surge in the world’s poorest continent. Kenya, Tanzania and host Rwanda are the countries in vogue at the World Economic Forum’s annual confab of Africa’s business and political leaders that began Wednesday in Kigali. All three economies should expand at least 6 percent this year, double the…

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South African economy not the second largest in Africa anymore

South African economy not the second largest in Africa anymore

Johannesburg, South Africa, Capital Markets in Africa: New data from the International Monetary Fund shows that Egypt is now Africa’s second largest economy after Nigeria, pushing South Africa into third place, according to a KPMG on Wednesday (May 11). South Africa has been known as the continent’s second-largest economy since Nigeria rebased its gross domestic product (GDP) data in early 2014. However, the IMF World Economic Outlook (WEO) released in mid-April provided more sobering GDP statistics for…

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Africa Embraces the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Africa Embraces the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Kigali, Rwanda, Capital Markets in Africa: Africa should use the opportunities presented by the Fourth Industrial Revolution to transform itself into a full partner on the global stage, said Paul Kagame, President of the Republic of Rwanda, at the opening address of the 26th World Economic Forum on Africa. “Africa should not be still playing catch-up when the fifth revolution comes around, he added. Kagame called for “a continent free of pity and apprehension, a…

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