Downgrade weighs on PPC as thrift pays for Mr Price

CLOTHING retailer Mr Price reported a 17.1% rise in full-year profit, boosted by thrifty shoppers lured by discount chains during weak economic growth. Diluted headline earnings per share rose to 1 012.9c from 865.1c a year earlier. Mr Price said cash sales were 9.2% higher, while credit growth was 2.3%. THE world’s largest brewer, Anheuser-Busch InBev, gained conditional approval for its $100-billion (R1.5-trillion) acquisition of SABMiller from the Competition Commission. The commission said it had recommended to the Competition Tribunal, which has the ultimate say, that it be “approved with conditions”. INDIAN motor company Mahindra & Mahindra hoped to start building vehicles in South Africa within five years‚ executive director Pawan Goenka hinted. Although there was no fixed timetable in place‚ he said the company believed local assembly would be practical once annual sales hit 6 000. Mahindra SA’s latest business plan sets a target of 12 000 sales a year by 2020 — triple this year’s expected 4 000. CEMENT company PPC would increase the scale and speed of a planned capitalraising exercise to reduce debt after a credit rating downgrade and as it braced for an expected drop in half-year profit, it said. PPC is now grappling to service dollar-denominated debt after the rand lost more than a third of its value over the past year. SOUTH Africa was still suffering the effects of a drought despite increased rainfall in May, leaving dam water levels low and crop supplies scant, the agricultural ministry said. The persistence of a severe drought across Southern Africa would result in widening cereal deficits due to crop failures, it said. MOST of South Africa’s big cities have increased their “fruitless and wasteful” spending in the last financial year. Nelson Mandela Bay metro was the worst offender‚ according to auditorgeneral Kimi Makwetu’s 2014-15 local government audit report. Out of the total of R1.3-billion fruitless and wasteful expenditure incurred by the 272 municipalities, it was responsible for R423-million.