Justin Brown
Guest Author
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/ 18 October 2004

Harmony wants to be number one

World number-six gold miner Harmony is looking to create the world’s largest gold mining group with its hostile bid for world number-four gold miner Gold Fields, Harmony chief executive Bernard Swanepoel said on Monday. A combined Harmony-Gold Fields entity would have gold output of about 7,5-million troy ounces.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-Business&ao=123854">Gold groups poised for merger</a>

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/ 11 October 2004

Union hits out at Kumba job losses

Mining group Kumba Resources has served trade union Solidarity with notice that the group is planning to retrench at least 400 of its 9&nbsp;960 workers. "We find Kumba’s insensitive actions incomprehensible. The group’s turnover for the year was R8,45-billion," Solidarity spokesperson Reint Dykema said.

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/ 11 October 2004

Pension fund seeks to recover R1,4bn loss

The Joint Municipal Pension Fund (JMPF) said on Monday it will seek to recover its full R1,4-billion loss suffered due to investments made by WJ Morgan & Associates, on behalf of the fund, in agricultural futures during December 2002 and January 2003. Due to the loss, the JMPF has reduced certain benefits of its active members and pensioners.

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/ 6 October 2004

Cold front set to hit Cape from Wednesday

A cold front will hit the Western Cape province from Wednesday evening and should continue moving over South Africa, while at the same time bringing rain, until Tuesday next week, said South African Weather Service (Saws) forecaster Evert Scholtz. There should be heavy showers over parts of the Western and Eastern Cape up until Friday.

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/ 7 September 2004

Sasol expects drop in oil price

Oil and chemicals group Sasol expects near-dated Brent crude oil to soften from its current level of about $40 a barrel, and during the course of the coming year the group expects Brent to fall to the low $30s a barrel, Sasol chief executive Pieter Cox said on Tuesday. London’s Brent crude closed on Monday at $40,62 a barrel.

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/ 7 September 2004

Sasol hit by Solidarity strike

More than 1&nbsp;000 Solidarity members who work for Sasol’s coal-mining operations embarked on a protected strike in Secunda on Tuesday, Solidarity said in a statement. Solidarity members are "tired" of Sasol’s management style, especially the poor salary increases the group gives and unsafe working conditions.

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/ 26 August 2004

JSE ticks higher on buying interest

The JSE Securities Exchange (JSE) on Thursday ticked higher, after two days of consolidation, on buying interest, with volumes very thin, equity brokers said. By 12.05pm, the all-share index was 0,69% higher. Resources climbed 0,75% and the gold-mining index was 0,71% higher.

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/ 25 August 2004

Santam interim earnings up 181%

Short-term insurer Santam on Wednesday reported a 181% increase in its interim headline earnings per share to 518 cents for the half-year ending June 2004, up from 184 cents in the same period in 2003. The group also declared an interim dividend per share of 95 cents, up 32% from 72 cents in the previous comparative period.