Finance

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – South Africa’s state power company is planning to propose that some of the funding the country secured to help tackle climate change take the form of loans to the government that could be converted to equity in the utility when needed. The arrangement would enable Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. to access the $8.5 billion pledged by the U.S., U.K., Germany, France and the European Union without adding to its debt burden,…

CAIRO (Capital Markets in Africa) – An Abu Dhabi wealth fund agreed with Egypt to invest about $2 billion by buying state-held stakes in some companies, including the North African nation’s largest listed bank, according to people familiar with the deal. Part of the agreement with ADQ involves it buying about 18% of Commercial International Bank, said the people who asked not to be identified as the talks are confidential. Along with the CIB portion, which…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Dangote Cement Plc, Africa’s largest producer of the building material, will invest $500 million over the next three to five years to expand production capacity in countries with increasing demand. “We are now focused on the next capital expansion cycle, which includes building grinding plants across West and Central Africa,” Chief Executive Officer Michel Puchercos, said during an investor call on Tuesday. “We are considering increasing capacity in countries with…

Dar es Salaam (Capital Markets in Africa) – Tanzania, which was among the last nations to start vaccinations against Covid-19, needs to accelerate inoculation to help quicken its economic recovery, the World Bank said. The East African nation of about 60 million people administered 2.4 million doses over about five months after President Samia Suluhu Hassan launched the program in July. “A slow pace by global standards,” the World Bank said in its biannual Tanzania Economic Update…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Microsoft Corp.’s new multifunction goggle system for the U.S. Army shows promise, but the $22 billion program isn’t yet ready for combat deployment, according to the Pentagon’s test office. Despite progress since the contract was awarded in 2018, the system “has not yet demonstrated the capability to serve as a fighting goggle,” according to a non-public assessment by the Pentagon’s director of operational testing that was sent to the…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Pfizer Inc. said it is starting a study of a Covid-19 vaccine that targets the omicron variant, exploring its use in previously vaccinated younger and middle-aged adults as well as those who haven’t received another coronavirus shot.  The New York-based drugmaker and its German partner, BioNTech SE, said in a statement on Tuesday that they had enrolled the first participants in a 1,420-person clinical trial that will evaluate the shot’s…