Finance

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…

LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – In a year when billionaires are hot political targets, and Wall Street leaders openly worry about the future of capitalism, many are about to take refuge among friends in sunny California. Buyout titans, bankers, politicians, entertainment moguls and even professional athletes are among hundreds set to gather at the Milken Global Conference in Los Angeles starting this weekend. With democratic socialists propelling the national news and presidential candidates debating how much…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Nigeria plans to almost double oil production and triple its refining capacity by 2025, reviving previous pledges that turned out to be hard to achieve in practice. The OPEC member is looking to pump 4 million barrels a day by 2025 and increase refining capacity to 1.5 million barrels daily, Maikanti Baru, managing director of state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corp., said at a conference Thursday in the capital Abuja. “Nigeria…