Finance

NEW YORK (Capital Markets in Africa) – For more than a year, Apple Inc. avoided major damage from the U.S. trade war with China, thanks in part to a White House charm offensive by Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook. But the company now faces its first major hit — from both sides of the dispute. A new round of tariffs proposed by the U.S. on Monday includes mobile phones, meaning the iPhone, Apple’s most important product that is…

ACCRA (Capital Markets in Africa)  – PBC Ltd., Ghana’s biggest cocoa buyer, seeks to raise $100 million from international banks to help pay off cedi debt that matured late December. The transaction, handled by an Accra-based advisory firm, should be completed before the start of the main harvest on Oct. 1, said Deputy Chief Executive Officer Kojo Safo. The company has approached the state-run pension fund and the government, who together own a 75 percent…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Chad scrapped import taxes on staple foods to quell growing anger about rising food prices, a month after protests in neighboring Sudan over high costs of living forced President Omar al-Bashir to step down. The decision comes amid regular, days-long power outages in the capital, N’Djamena, and after almost four months of an acute cooking-gas shortage that forced the poorest residents to use cow dung as fuel. Last year,…

LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – London’s property market is continuing to bear the brunt of Brexit malaise, according to a report from Acadata. House prices in the capital fell by 1.1% in April from a year earlier, the reportshowed. Nationally, they rose 0.2% in the period, to an average 302,122 pounds ($393,332). The number of property sales tell a similar story, At the national level, an increase over the past year, along with an uptick in first-time…

NAIROBI (Capital Markets in Africa) – Kenya will spend $210 million on linking and upgrading older tracks with its new standard-gauge railway as it abandons a plan to extend the Chinese-funded project to Uganda’s border that would have created a faster export route to the Indian Ocean for landlocked neighbors. Of the sum, $60 million will fund a 43-kilometer (26.7 mile) meter-gauge line that will act to connect the old and new railways, according to…

MAPUTO (Capital Markets in Africa) – Anadarko Petroleum Corp. plans to give the go-ahead next month for its $20 billion Mozambique liquefied natural gas project, one of the assets caught in the middle of a bidding war for the driller. Texas-based Anadarko will announce a final investment decision for the facility on June 18 in Maputo, the explorer said Wednesday in a statement. All issues between the company and the government of Mozambique have been resolved, it…