Bankserv is a lucrative business with an annual turnover of about R200-million — which is why global electronic payments companies would love to get their hands on it. First Data’s mooted offer this week was evidence of this. Ownership of Bankserv would provide the new owner with a guaranteed income stream from about 20-billion banking transactions a year.
State-owned utility Eskom said on Thursday it had recorded a profit of R6,454-billion for the financial year ending March 2007. If the impact of embedded derivatives is excluded, the profit after tax was R3,4-billion. But at the same time, the group is under severe pressure to increase capacity as economic growth drives energy demand higher.
As children, we soon learned, it was different for boys. While they had Superman, Desperate Dan, a legion of Bash Street Kids and the Hardy Boys, for girls, sturdy female heroes were thin on the ground. The pages of Bunty were riddled with ladies who swooned, and simpering boarding-school girls who dreamed of ponies, while on television women were always assistants, love interests or girls who got the collywobbles at the sight of a ghost or a spider.
Those involved in peace and in anti-conscription movements during apartheid, are mourning the loss of peace activist Nan Cross, who died last weekend aged 79. Her religion and her pacifist sentiments meant that her contribution to the anti-apartheid struggle centred on conscientious objection.
Sajida Khan (55) died in her home on Sunday night, during a second bout of cancer caused — she was convinced — by Durban’s largest dump. The Bisasar Road site, which handles most of the city’s rubbish, was placed directly across the street from her home in Clare Estate in 1980.
There has been a ruckus recently because Discovery Health Medical Scheme has continued to fail to meet its 25% solvency ratio required by law. The question Discovery Health members are asking is: are their benefits safe? Can Discovery Health meet member claims?
Africa’s east coast could go from having no undersea broadband cables to four. The planned East Africa Submarine System, touted as the solution for the bandwidth-starved continent, has been plagued by political squabbles that have resulted in it splintering into four mooted cable projects.
Last week France and Germany abandoned the dual-nationality management structure at Eads, the owner of Airbus, in an attempt to turn the struggling aerospace and defence group into a "normal" global company. The move will bring an end to the strife that has crippled the group for the past two years.
Philomena Appiah’s factory is the surprising source of thousands of American uniforms and workwear items, tailored by Ghanaian seamstresses and shipped across the Atlantic to stores in the United States as part of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa).
Motorists can be expected to pay more for fuel soon as crude prices soared again to nearly $77 a barrel. Turmoil in the international oil markets — due to strong demand, geopolitical instability and a shortage of refining capacity — will put further upward pressure on forecourt prices.