Hits&Misses

Producer prices gather pace, and lenders take that Eskom bet

TWO months into the new financial year, Eskom said it had successfully raised more than R13-billion, narrowing its funding gap to R58-billion for the year to end-March 2019. This was 10% ahead of its target as lenders had opened their wallets since the start of 2018, said CEO Phakamani Hadebe.

THE ANC said it would engage widely on the nationalisation of the Reserve Bank before moving forward with the implementation of the policy adopted at its conference in December. The party appears to be treading cautiously after hastily tabling a motion on the nationalisation of the bank in parliament before later withdrawing it at the prompting of Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene.

CSG’s share price rose as much as 6% after it posted a 27% rise in annual net profit. The group, which supplies contract workers for services including catering and security, kept its dividend at 5c. FACTORY and farm gate inflation, as measured by the annual change in the producer price index, accelerated to 4.4% in April from 3.7% in March. Producer inflation was expected to accelerate in April when a range of higher taxes and levies took effect. However, the 4.4% reported by

Stats SA was higher than economists’ consensus of 4.2%.

TELKOM cut its dividend and reported a slump in full-year earnings as South Africa’s biggest provider of fixed phone lines struggles with a decline in its traditional voice services. The company reduced the annual payout to shareholders by 16% to R3.55 a share, it said.

AFRICAN swine fever, a severe haemorrhagic disease of pigs, has been reported in the Northern Cape, the Department of Agriculture said. The new blow to the pork industry comes as prices tumble after a listeriosis outbreak that was traced to processed meat from a Tiger Brands factory.