Finance

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – Sibanye Stillwater Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Neal Froneman expects battery metals to contribute about a third of the world’s biggest platinum miner’s earnings within four years as the transition to a greener economy spurs demand. Since its formation in 2013, after Gold Fields Ltd. spun off its oldest South African gold mines, Froneman has transformed Sibanye through the acquisition of platinum-group metals assets from Montana to Zimbabwe. This year, his focus…

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…

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…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – AFC Capital Partners plans to raise $2 billion to fund infrastructure projects in Africa that will make it more resilient to climate change. The asset management company, a unit of the Africa Finance Corp., will raise an initial $500 million in its debut offering over the next year and the full amount over the coming three years, it said in a statement.  While Africa produces just 4% of the world’s…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – When Anthony Stimler left Glencore Plc in August 2019, he had two big secrets: For a dozen years, he’d paid millions in bribes to African officials and intermediaries. And he was now helping a U.S. Justice Department investigation into the company and numerous former colleagues. Corruption isn’t exactly unheard of in the extraction and trading of commodities, especially in the developing world. But details of Stimler’s cooperation deal, obtained…

MAPUTO (Capital Markets in Africa) – Troops from Mozambique and Rwanda retook a port town at the heart of a four-year insurgency that led to the suspension of a $20 billion project by TotalEnergies SE. Soldiers from the two countries took back Mocimboa da Praia, which insurgents with ties to Islamic State have held for a year, the Rwanda Defence Force said in Twitter post on Sunday. The Mozambican defense ministry later confirmed the development, saying operations continued to…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – MTN Group Ltd. plans to reduce its foreign-exchange spending in Nigeria, its biggest market, and pay more of its costs in the local currency to reduce its exposure to exchange-rate volatility. A recent decision by the Central Bank of Nigeria to devalue the naira by 7.6% against the dollar to 410.7 has had a major impact on the business, Africa’s biggest wireless carrier said in a statement on Friday,…