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/ 9 February 2004
Attempts to tie foreign direct investment (FDI) to development objectives are falling away across the world as competition for FDI intensifies, a United Nations study has indicated. The research shows that middle-income countries have been forced to relax their imposition of performance requirements on FDI, either by making them voluntary rather than mandatory or scrapping them altogether.
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/ 6 February 2004
Privatisation in South Africa lost momentum last year as the ruling African National Congress deferred to its trade union ally, suggests a new report by the BusinessMap Foundation. The government frequently cites the poor market conditions and state of the global economy as reasons for not pressing ahead with privatisation.
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/ 30 January 2004
The now-approved merger between Tiso Capital and New Africa Investment Limited (Nail) would bring a "healthy consolidation" to the South African media industry, a leading analyst said this week. The comment came after the Competition Tribunal conditionally approved the R1-billion transaction, bringing to an end months of uncertainty.
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/ 27 January 2004
Executive airline Sun Air will cap its first year under new ownership with a profit, a new investment partner and expansion plans. General manager Robalt Keselder confirmed that a European investor has bought into the airline, "but would not like to be identified at this stage".
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/ 27 January 2004
The entry of a new low-fare airline, and the price war that has erupted between budget carriers, may lead to "someone getting hurt", John Morrison, CEO of the Airline Association of Southern Africa warned last week. Morrison’s comments came as a new airline, 1Time, started selling tickets for the Johannesburg to Cape Town route.
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/ 23 January 2004
The national Treasury moved to secure maximum market stability ahead of the Budget next month when it announced its new director general and two key senior positions. Incumbent Lesetja "Congress" Kganyago takes over just as the final touches are put on the Budget, which will be unveiled on February 18.
South Africans are about to "rewrite the record books" with a R35-billion spending spree — but without the need to worry about a debt or inflation hangover, says Dawie Roodt, chief economist at the Efficient group.
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/ 12 December 2003
After slashing interest rates by a merry-making 5% for the year, Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni took the fizz out of the good times with a meagre 0,5% rate cut on Thursday, bringing the repo rate to 8%.
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/ 12 December 2003
Tokyo Sexwale’s Mvelaphanda Holdings stands at the crossroads, facing either the possibility of flourishing as a major pan-African conglomerate or becoming overstretched and crashing, commentators suggested last week.
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/ 21 November 2003
Platinum is riding the crest of a wave in world markets, but its longer-term prospects are less buoyant, a key market analysis suggested last week. Demand for the precious metal is growing more slowly than it has in 10 years. South Africa is expected to supply a record 4,65-million ounces of the world’s 6,11-million ounces produced this year — that’s a whopping 76%.
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/ 21 November 2003
Any attempt to bring the stock market closer to the man on the street and turn markets into truly popular social institutions has to be regarded as a boon. In a country like South Africa, it is essential that such investment and education tools have a low entry barrier and are cost-effective and simple to understand.
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/ 21 November 2003
South Africa’s mining empowerment legislation and the popularity of platinum has spawned a flurry of empowerment deals, the most recent of which introduced a new player in the platinum industry.
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/ 11 November 2003
South African Airways’s (SAA) appointment of a new management team last week brings to a close a year of turbulence marked by the departure of key staff. The national carrier had been set on a stable foot-ing in readiness for international competition and eventual privatisation, said SAA’s CEO and president André Viljoen.
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/ 7 November 2003
<i>The Kwaito Generals</i> serves as a useful tool to document the key moments — and three key figures — in the decade-long evolution of the phenomenon that is today known as kwaito, writes Thebe Mabanga.
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/ 4 November 2003
Petrochemical giant Sasol used last week to reflect on a trying year in which profits came under severe pressure from the strengthening rand, and the group suffered an explosion in its National Petroleum Refiners of South Africa refinery in Sasolburg while struggling to dispose of a plant in The Netherlands.
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/ 31 October 2003
‘Looks like we’ve made it – Look how far we’ve come my [governor]." These lyrics from Shania Twain would have been appropriate to sing the praises of Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni this week, as the country finally got one hand on the Holy Grail of the inflation target.
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/ 27 October 2003
Ellerines Holdings, the second-largest furniture group by market cap, used last week’s results presentation to unveil plans to sew up the market and grow at home and abroad. The group’s highlight for the year was the acquisition — for R507-million — of upmarket furniture group Wetherleys and its sibling Osiers.
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/ 24 October 2003
A message from Incognito ahead of their performances in South Africa next week: "Don’t you worry ’bout a thing" for we will leave you "spellbound and speechless". Well, actually those are titles to two of the numerous hits Incognito has given us over the past decade as one of the world’s top acid jazz and funk bands, writes Thebe Mabanga.
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/ 24 October 2003
Employers have shifted rising medical costs to their employees over the past 10 years, and are increasingly reluctant to fund retirement health benefits, Old Mutual’s latest health-care survey finds. However, the survey also notes that employer attitudes towards HIV/Aids among their workers has improved.
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/ 24 October 2003
Thebe Investments Corporation marked its acquisition of a controlling stake in well-known stockbrokers PLJ Financial Services this week by poaching two dealing teams from another empowerment firm, Kagiso Securities.
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/ 20 October 2003
South Africa has less than five years to increase its capacity for electricity generation, Xolani Mkhwanazi, National Electricity Regulator (NER) CEO, warned last week. Mkhwanazi’s comments coincided with the release of the NER’s annual report. His call for greater urgency was echoed by a range of industry players.
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/ 14 October 2003
The battle for the soul of Nail has "shaken up people who believed they are entitled to [Nail’s] media assets", says Fani Titi, CEO of Tiso Capital, the new frontrunners to secure the pioneering empowerment group. Titi added that the events of the past week showed growing "maturity" on the part of black business.
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/ 13 October 2003
Thebe Mabanga, reporter and columnist at the Mail & Guardian, writes that the politics and business beat isnt so different from his old arts beat.
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/ 10 October 2003
In a response to mounting government pressure on the financial services sector, Absa and FirstRand this week lifted the wraps on major empowerment initiatives.
FirstRand unveiled a procurement-driven strategy, while Absa launched a R250-million fund to help aspiring entrepreneurs.
New Africa Investment Limited (Nail) was driven to the wall by constant questioning of its empowerment credentials and management discord, a senior media analyst has suggested. These weaknesses prevented Nail’s bosses from figuring out how to navigate regulatory restrictions that were ultimately a debilitating impediment.
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/ 30 September 2003
Over the past three years, any unemployed person listening to Trevor Manuel deliver the Budget, or Tito Mboweni presenting his once quarterly and now two-monthly interest rates decision, could have been forgiven for thinking that job creation is a by-product, not the ultimate aim, of sound economic management.
The purchase of a slice of Gold Fields by Mvela-phanda Resources may be one of the most significant in its acquisition trail over the past year and one of the largest empowerment deals in mining to date, but it worries analysts.
New life has been breathed into plans for a second fixed-line telephone operator, and cellphone users have good reason to look forward to an upgraded service.
It will soon be possible to buy your imported cheeses and pick up your Prozac in a one-stop operation – depending on where you shop.
One of South Africa’s oldest investment holding firms, Tradek, broke new ground on Thursday this week when it announced a 70% acquisition of its equity by black empowerment consortium Tlotlisa
SABMiller CEO Graham McKay last week threatened to take the government to the country’s highest court if it "ignored reality" and pressed ahead with the controversial Liquor Bill.
The banking group Investec put on a brave face this week by maintaining its dividend for the year to March, despite suffering heavy losses.