Finance

LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – Rules put in place to save U.K. taxpayers from bailing out major lenders again are having an unintended side effect. They’re encouraging HSBC Holdings Plc to wade into a market it long neglected: British mortgages. Trading updates in recent weeks from Nationwide Building Society, Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and Metro Bank Plc said competition to lend to British home buyers was intensifying, even with Brexit looming. HSBC has been wooing first-time home buyers in…

LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – Honda Motor Co. is planning to close its factory in the U.K., dealing a new blow to a British auto industry already struggling with a Brexit-related slowdown and potential tariffs, Sky News reported, citing an unnamed source close to the company. The Japanese manufacturer could announce the decision to close the plant in Swindon by 2022 as early as Tuesday. The factory, Honda’s only one in the EU, employs around…

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – A South African company embroiled in allegations that it paid millions of rand a month in bribes to secure government contracts is facing collapse, becoming the biggest casualty since President Cyril Ramaphosa started a probe into state corruption. African Global Operations, the services company formerly known as Bosasa, will apply for either a voluntary liquidation or business rescue after a local bank informed the firm it will close its accounts by the…

NAIROBI (Capital Markets in Africa) – Kenya said it’s almost reached an agreement with the International Monetary Fund on a new standby loan facility after a meeting this week in the East Africa nation’s capital, Nairobi. A similar facility, where the IMF availed $1.5 billion for Kenya to draw from in the event of balance of payment shocks, but didn’t, lapsed in September. The insurance-type facility will serve to reassure buyers of Kenyan debt such as…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – President Donald Trump said he’s open to extending a March 1 deadline to raise tariffs on Chinese products if the two sides are near an agreement, sending a conciliatory signal amid talks to resolve the trade war between the world’s two biggest economies. “If we’re close to a deal where we think we can make a real deal and it’s going to get done, I could see myself letting that slide…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Nigeria expects $3 billion in investment funding from citizens living mainly in the U.S. to support the agriculture, power, mining and transportation sectors, a senior presidential adviser said. The government will support “a diaspora investment fund,” Abike Dabiri-Erewa, President Muhammadu Buhari’s adviser on diaspora affairs, said in an interview in Abuja, the capital. “They’re planning a $3 billion investment in Nigeria. The fund will be driven by Nigerians in America.”…

NAIROBI (Capital Markets in Africa) – The European Investment Bank plans to double its funding for infrastructure development in Kenya this year if government bureaucracy in approving projects eases. The Luxembourg-based lender targets to disburse 200 million euros ($227 million) of loans, half of which will be available for the Kenya Ports Authority to refurbish berths at East Africa’s busiest sea-port in Mombasa county, Catherine Collin, the bank’s East Africa representative, said Thursday in an…