A LONG-AWAITED plan to merge South Africa’s three financial exchanges was scuppered on Wednesday when two of the bourses voted against it, objecting to the shape of the union and questioning its short-term benefits. The proposed merger, which had been expected to be in force by year-end after three years on the drawing board, got […]

A LEADING drink distributor is combining canny marketing with a sombre message about drinking and driving over Christmas and the millennium, offering a free breathalyser with every bottle of its spirits. The free kit, bearing the message “celebrate wisely”, will be hung round the neck of every bottle of Gilbey’s Bells, Johnnie Walker and J&B […]

BANKING and financial services shares, which analysts say have languished in deeply oversold territory, are expected to launch a comeback next week,but the wider market is harder to call. Analysts said on Friday that the approach of the millennium date change and its attendant uncertainties, perceived to be more acute in emerging markets, would sap […]

ANGLOGOLD said on Friday that it has already been offered 24,6% of the issued capital of Australian gold miner Acacia Resources in terms of its takeover offer. “We are delighted with this positive early response from the Acacia shareholders,” AngloGold CEO Bobby Godsell said in a statement. AngloGold has offered 3,5 of its shares for […]

TELFORD VICE, Harare | Friday 6.15pm. ZIMBABWE crawled to a painstaking 163 for nine after Sri Lankan left-arm paceman Nuwan Zoysa rocked them with a hat-trick off his first three deliveries on the opening day of the second test on Friday. Zoysa shattered Zimbabwe’s top order when he removed Trevor Gripper, Murray Goodwin and Neil […]

VIRGIN Atlantic airlines boss Richard Branson blew into Cape Town on Thursday to launch his first flights to the tourist mecca. ”It has taken us 15 years to get permission to fly to Cape Town,” he told a media conference before a launch party on the city’s Camps Bay beach. ”Once a week means we […]

THE summit of Kilimanjaro is, at 5891,77 metres, some three metres lower than previously supposed, Eberhard Messner, member of a German-Tanzanian geological expedition, said on Thursday. The highest mountain on the African continent, in northern Tanzania, it had previously been put at 5985 metres. A 21-member team of researchers from Germany and Tanzania measured the […]

MICHAEL FINCH, Wanderers | Friday 6.15pm. DARYLL Cullinan equalled his country’s record for the most Test centuries as South Africa rubbed salt in England’s wounds on the second day of the first Test at the Wanderers on Friday. Cullinan’s 108, the ninth 100 of his career, helped South Africa reach 386 for six in their […]

ZIMBABWE police are investigating death threats sent to three journalists from different private newspapers — including two containing live bullets. The police said Basildon Peta, a news editor at the Independent Financial Gazette newspaper, received three live bullets and a message at his home last week advising him to “watch out or you are dead”. […]