Southern Africa |

Heroin Is One of Biggest Mozambique Exports, Researchers Say

MAPUTO (Capital Markets in Africa) – Mozambique boasts vast coal, ruby and gas deposits, but one of the southeast African nation’s biggest exports may be something more sinister: heroin. As much as $800 million worth of the narcotic is shipped annually from its beaches to neighboring countries and to Europe. That’s according to a research paper by Enact, a European Union-funded initiative to mitigate the impact of transnational organized crime, and a related working paper…

Japan’s Retail Army Is Piling Into Rand While Shunning Lira

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JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – The lira’s loss is the rand’s gain. Japan’s retail investors are boosting holdings of South Africa’s currency at the fastest pace since 2009 while cutting foreign-exchange exposure in Turkey. Individual investors from the Asian nation have raised their net rand long position against the yen for five straight months through June, according to data from Tokyo Financial Exchange Inc. They have been reducing their net lira positioning for four months. “Japanese…

Jooste Profited From Steinhoff Land Deal in 2007, Filings Show

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JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – Markus Jooste, who quit as head of Steinhoff International Holdings NV in December amid an accounting scandal, oversaw a complex series of transactions where decisions made by the South African retailer benefited him personally, company filings show. In a set of property deals reviewed by Bloomberg, companies linked to Jooste and Steinhoff associates profited by hundreds of millions of rand between 2002 and 2007. Steinhoff said it has handed information about…

Why South Africa Is Ripping Up Its Mining Rules Again: QuickTake

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JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – South Africa’s mining industry is a prime example of the nation’s stark imbalances. Its highly paid, mainly white male executives oversee hundreds of thousands of mostly black workers laboring in deep and dangerous operations. To spread the nation’s wealth more equally, the government revised its mining charter in 2017 to require that companies give more ownership to black shareholders. The industry lobby group sued to stop some changes it…

Angolan Banking sector resilient to macroeconomic shocks

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LUANDA (Capital Markets in Africa) – The International Monetary Fund considered that the heavy reliance of Angolan banks on the oil sector constitutes a key risk, mainly for state-owned banks, while private banks are better positioned to weather the impact of an oil shock given their initial strong position. It indicated that the main channel of transmission of an oil shock is through fiscal activity, as lower oil prices would contain public spending and weaken non-hydrocarbon sector activity and,…

StanChart Chairman Says Bank Acts `Decisively’ on Misconduct

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JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – Standard Chartered Plc Chairman Jose Vinals defended the bank’s culture, insisting the emerging markets-focused lender has acted swiftly and “decisively” to root out misconduct. His comments, in an interview in Lagos, Nigeria, come after a number of top executives in charge of policing behaviour at the bank were themselves disciplined or investigated for allegations of harassment or inappropriate conduct, people familiar with the matter said earlier this month. Vinals said any instances…

The Wheel Turns for South African Bonds as Sell-Off Worsens

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JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – South African government bonds handed dollar investors a whopping 13 percent return in the first quarter, the best performance out of 25 major emerging markets. In the second quarter, they’ve lost it all, and then some. Rand-denominated debt has lost 17 percent since the beginning of April, the most among developing nations after Argentina and Turkey, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s partly a result of the rand’s…

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