The Markets

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – Damage caused by Cyclone Idai to pylons in Mozambique that carry power to neighboring countries may take weeks to repair, a state-power company official said. The damage to Mozambican infrastructure has exacerbated rolling outages in South Africa, where state-owned utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. is struggling to bring faulty generating units back online. Mozambique’s 2,075-megawatt Cahora Bassa hydropower dam supplies almost three-quarters of its output to South Africa along a 1,400-kilometer…

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – Sibanye Gold Ltd. said a South African court ruling that it can extend a wage agreement reached with three unions to a fourth could pave the way to ending a strike by thousands of workers at its gold mines. Should a verification exercise determine that those three unions — the National Union of Mineworkers, UASA and Solidarity — together account for more than 50 percent of the company’s gold-mining workforce,…

ACCRA (Capital Markets in Africa) – Ghana’s $3 billion Eurobond offering on Tuesday attracted bids that were more than six times the amount issued, according to a government official. The sale’s orderbook was about $20 billion, the country’s Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta told Bloomberg TV, a sign appetite for risky assets is still going strong. Ghana joins a slew of emerging-market borrowers who took advantage of the dovish turn in some of the world’s most important central…

TRIPOLI (Capital Markets in Africa) – Libya boosted crude production by a third after restarting its biggest field, and its top oil official sees further gains when companies like BP Plc invest and start pumping oil in the politically divided OPEC nation. The Sharara field in southern Libya is currently pumping 260,000 barrels a day, and the state-run National Oil Corp. is working to raise production, NOC Chairman Mustafa Sanalla told Bloomberg Television in an interview. Sharara resumed pumping…

LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – Asking prices for London homes fell this month as buyers hesitated on closing deals amid political turmoil over Brexit. Average values declined in March, slumping 1.1 percent from February to 607,557 pounds ($806,000), property-website Rightmove said in a report Monday. Asking prices in the capital dropped 3.8 percent from a year earlier with the number of sales agreed by real-estate agents 9.6 percent below the same period in 2018. London’s property…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – The pound weakened Monday as optimism that an immediate resolution could be found to the Brexit impasse dimmed. Sterling declined against all Group-of-10 currencies after Parliament speaker, John Bercow, forbid U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May from bringing her Brexit deal back for another vote if it is “substantially the same”. May was widely expected to bring her divorce plan for another try before Wednesday or use the threat of…

MAPUTO (Capital Markets in Africa) – A U.S. Department of Justice probe into a $2 billion loan scandal in Mozambique is exposing some of the southeastern African nation’s top politicians to allegations of wrongdoing, just months before it holds elections. It’s also complicating the government’s talks with international creditors on how to restructure the debt, which includes $727 million of bonds. Why is the U.S. involved? U.S. prosecutors describe the case as a “brazen international…