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Bond Flight From South Africa Spurs `Amplification’ Warning

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – Foreign investors’ holdings of South African bonds have dropped to the lowest level in more than a year following a record sell-off since the beginning of May, and a senior Treasury official says there could be worse to come. Non-residents held 38.9 percent of government debt as of June 22, down from as high as 42.8 percent in March, according to Bloomberg’s calculations based on National Treasury data through…

South Africa Central Bank Sees Limited Room for Further Easing

Posted on by The Editorial Team

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – South Africa has little room for further interest-rate cuts unless the inflation outlook improves, the central bank said. Monetary policy is still marginally accommodative and “the room for additional rate cuts remains limited in the absence of a more durable improvement” in the price-growth outlook, the central bank said in its annual report published on its website on Monday. The Monetary Policy Committee kept its key rate unchanged at 6.5 percent last…

Africa’s Biggest Transport Company Starts Split of Auto Unit

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JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – Imperial Holdings Ltd., Africa’s largest transportation company by sales, moved forward with plans to list shares of its automotive division in Johannesburg as part of efforts aimed at improving prospects for the overall group. In a strategy initiated by former Chief Executive Officer Mark Lamberti, Johannesburg-based Imperial has been gradually separating the vehicle and logistics businesses ahead of the proposed new listing. While the autos unit is focused mainly on…

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

Posted on by The Editorial Team

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…

Trade War Piles Pain on China-Exporter Emerging Markets

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LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Just when it looked like things couldn’t get much worse for emerging markets, along comes a trade war. And it’s hitting emerging-market commodity producers and exporters to China especially hard. Take Thailand and South Africa, which each ship about 20 percent of their foreign-bound goods to China. The Thai baht has just reversed year-to-date gains against the dollar, while the South African rand is down 1.9 percent this week,…

Ratings Cos. Gave South Africa Benefit of the Doubt, Nene Says

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JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – Credit ratings companies gave South Africa the “benefit of the doubt” by keeping the nation’s credit assessments unchanged after the recent political transition, Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene said. With all three major credit rating companies that now have a stable outlook on their assessments they “are giving us a chance to implement our reforms,” Nene told reporters in London on Friday. President Cyril Ramaphosa’s rise to power since December initially boosted sentiment and the…

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

Posted on by The Editorial Team

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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